


Siren Call

by natigail



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Crying, Fear of Drowning, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Happy Ending, Hunters & Hunting, Hurt/Comfort, I'm overcautiously tagging for potential triggers but nothing is graphic I promise, Idiots in Love, M/M, Mild Blood, Minor Injuries, Misunderstandings, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Near Death Experiences, Non-Consensual Touching, Oblivious Dan Howell, Predator/Prey, Shipwrecks, Siren Phil Lester, Sirens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-07-31 05:28:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 32,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20109883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natigail/pseuds/natigail
Summary: Beware of the siren's call, they tell you.Dan had heard enough horror stories about sirens to be thoroughly terrified. He never wanted to go near the water, but as fate would have it, Dan's father had to sign him up for on a merchant's ship bound for the siren's passage. Dan had a sinking feeling that he was not going to survive an encounter with one of the deadly predators. Those touched by the siren's kiss were bound to drown. Except... it doesn't go quite like that.





	1. The Siren's Prey

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Siren's Call](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17956280) by [wittyy_name](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wittyy_name/pseuds/wittyy_name). 
**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Near drowning, near death experiences

_Beware of the siren’s call, they tell you._

_Plug your ears with beeswax._

_For if you hear the deadly song… _

_Your last breath will be shallowed by an insatiable siren._

Like any other child, Dan had heard the warnings of sirens growing up. They were used to terrify children, even the ones that didn’t live near the sea. Dan had first heard about them when he had been at a sleepover and a dozen or so children had been clutched together around an old grandpa. He was a sailor and he had once escaped the siren’s call.

Dan had listened first with fascination and later with terror as the story went on. The old man had seen more than half his crew be dragged into the water after the shipwreck. The glorious ship had been no match for the sharp rocks and the man at the wheel of the ship had fallen prey easily to the alluring voices. Some of the crew had managed to escape in the lifeboats but even half of those had been brought down as the sirens chases after them. Three boats made it far enough away but even the men that survived would never be the same.

Upon hearing that story, Dan had been quite adamant that he didn’t want to ever be out on the open sea. He was quite comfortable in his small life with the safety of the ground beneath his feet. Whenever he went to the harbour, to fetch something for his family, he would stare out at the sea, seemingly endless and wonder how close sirens could get to civilization.

He had always felt apprehensive about water, even before he had heard the tales of the sirens. When his father had insisted that he practice swimming in the lake, he’d nearly thrown a fit. He’s tried every argument he could think of but his father wasn’t having it. A young man should be able to swim, he said.

Dan lived in a harbour town, which meant that most young men signed up to board merchant’s ships when they reached maturity. It was commonplace, and it was frowned upon if a young man didn’t do at least a few months at sea. The town’s motto was that every real man should have tried living at sea. People said that it was an essential part of a young man’s education. Dan was almost convinced that everyone just wanted cheap labour to do the dirty work.

And so, he dreaded the day that he officially became a man and eligible to join a ship. He had tried to pretend that it wasn’t looming, and it wasn’t inevitable. As if he just didn’t think about it, maybe it would truly go away. Instead, he focused on finishing school and taking walks in the nearby forest.

He felt much calmer there, surrounded by chirping birds and the gentle rustle of the wind through the leaves. It was calm there, safe and guarded and he didn’t want to be trapped on a boat, in the middle of the ocean and having to battle harsh winds.

His pretend could only last so long. His birthday came and passed and only a few days later, his father told him that he had signed him up to the next ship that was set to make port. His father even sounded proud of himself because the vessel was offering a slightly higher than usual wage to Dan. Dan wanted to argue and refuse to board but he knew that he would be kicked out of the house, if he did so. He might officially be an adult, but he very much still depended on his parents unless he could get his own income.

Not many people in town would hire young men who hadn’t been through their “sea training” as the locals playfully called it. Dan really had no option but to go. And so, he went.

Dan’s family waved him off at the harbour and Dan’s heart ached at the pride he saw in his parents’ eyes and the awe in his little brother. He couldn’t even be happy about it because he was doomed to be miserable. He knew it for a fact. He already felt ill just standing out on the deck and feeling the slight movements of the ship. He wanted to go back to his forest, to check up on the sparrows that had just hatched and lose himself to wandering. 

Instead, he was heading out to sea, set to do menial and hard work for months, and on top of that he was now remembering all the stories he’d been told of sirens. Some people said that the rumours were exaggerated and that sirens really weren’t _that_common, but Dan wasn’t sure if he was willing to bet his life on that. He could still recall how a shadow had fallen over that old man’s face when he’d told how he lost most of his crew to the vicious beasts. Dan had been plagued by nightmares for months after that story.

He was plagued by nightmares for the first week at sea too. It helped a little that he was so tired and worked to the bone that he flopped down and he was quick to fall asleep. The exhaustion would ensure a dreamless sleep for the first few hours and it was only later that the dreams would creep in. 

Dan would dream of slimy hands reaching out for him, water around his entire body as he fought to stay afloat and deadly notes being sung by beautiful voices.

He saw sharp teeth and deadly kisses as he was being pulled underwater and he drew his last breath. He woke in cold-sweat too many times and even the complains from his fellow crewmates didn’t reach him in his panic as his heart threatened to jump out of his chest.

“Hey, do you know when we’ll be in a harbour next?” Dan asked one of the other young men once a week had passed.

He’d noticed that the vessel wasn’t carrying any goods, which seemed a little odd to him but he imagined that maybe they were going somewhere to pick them up first. He was a little annoyed at himself that he hadn’t studied up on the habits of merchant vessels, just because he had hoped that he could escape being on one if he ignored it for long enough

“Harbour? We’re not going to a harbour,” the guy replied and snorted. 

“Then how are we going to pick up any goods?” Dan asked, feeling both stupid and unsettled at being forced to ask.

“The goods that we’re picking up aren’t exactly crates in boxes neatly stacked in a harbour, you know?” the guy continued, and he looked at Dan like he was trying to communicate something implicitly, but it was going entirely over Dan’s head.

“What?”

“Geez, they really hire just about anyone, huh? Don’t you know about the coded language in the employment papers? Shit. That’s priceless,” the guy continued as he took in Dan’s confused expression. “Well, you’ll know soon enough. They’re doing a briefing about it tonight, I think.”

Dan wanted to ask more questions because he felt like he hadn’t actually been told what the hell was going on but the first mate walked by the two of them and seeing them standing around talking instead of washing the deck was punishable, so they quickly returned to their tasks.

Even as Dan’s hands worked, his mind wouldn’t quiet. Secret language? Dan hadn’t even seen his employment papers. His father had signed them for him but surely, he wouldn’t have signed Dan up for something dangerous. Or maybe he hadn’t known about the coded language either?

It was at dinner time that the Captain finally addressed the whole crew. Dan hadn’t seen much of the captain who had been holed up in his cabin most of the time, but he didn’t like the look of him. There was a cruelty in his eyes and he spoke in harsh tones, worse than just sailor language that Dan had gotten used to rather quickly. This man looked dangerous and greedy and Dan didn’t like the way he was eying the crew one bit.

“As I’m sure you’re all aware, we are approaching our destination. We should reach it around noon tomorrow, where the sun will be at its highest and the beasts will be their weakest.”

Beasts? What beasts, Dan thought to himself as he felt increasingly more terrified. He’d had the poor fortune of ending up by sitting next to the guy he had talked to this morning, who now elbowed him in the side with a gleam of excitement in his eyes.

“I can’t wait to see one with my own eyes,” he said and Dan had a really bad feeling about this. He wanted to get off the boat right now because too many things were lining up to only point in one direction and Dan very much wanted it not to be true.

“Aye, the mermaid’s cavern,” the Captain continued, and Dan was pretty sure that he stopped breathing. The Captain continued. “We will need to venture through the sirens’ passage, but we come prepared. Each and every one of you will be given specially made earplugs and those faints of heart will be tied down. I’m sure you’ve all heard the myths of sirens, but they are no match for the cleverness of man. I have personally sailed through here before without a scratch.”

Some people murmured in awe, but Dan was just frozen. He felt trapped and he wanted nothing more than to be able to just take flight or something and remove himself from this whole situation. Sirens. Mermaids. This certainly was not a merchant vessel, at least not of any common good. 

Of course, Dan had known that mermaids were being captured and displayed in some of the larger cities. They were treated like exotic animals and travelling shows and rich people alike would pay heavily for such a creature. Dan had never seen a mermaid in person, not even when a travelling show had moved through their town. They were supposed to look so human and Dan wasn’t sure if he believed that they were no more intelligent than a fish.

Mermaids and sirens were closely related with two key exceptions. Mermaids were strictly pescatarian and they didn’t hunt humans as they were mostly docile and passive. Sirens lured men to their deaths to devour their flesh and they were highly aggressive and dangerous.

“Depending on the number of mermaids we capture, you will receive a bonus. Let us rest well tonight for tomorrow we will need all our strength. It takes nought an hour to move through the siren’s passage and the mermaid’s cavern is close behind. Sirens stick in the water and when their song proves ineffective, they have little weapons but thrashing around angrily in the water. They are temperamental creatures and when angry they are an easy target for a harpoon. A kill of a siren or a capture of a mermaid will get you a further bonus for your brave heroics. If you have any further questions, address my quartermaster. Now, let’s have a toast for a good hunt.”

Dan didn’t lift his glass at all. He was just staring into the liquid as the cheers fell around him. Mermaid hunting. They were going to hunt and capture mermaids. They were going to fight and kill sirens.

Dan didn’t care if the Captain claimed that he’d done it before without losses. Frankly, he thought that story was glorified since no one really returned home with a mermaid without suffering in one way or another. Maybe the Captain would be alright but Dan was fairly certain that he didn’t count loss of young men as scratches on himself. They were just disposable labour after all.

It went without saying that Dan didn’t get any sleep that night. He had tried because he knew that he would be better prepared to face whatever horrendous venture awaited him if he was rested but sleep just wouldn’t come. Instead, he was plagued by the images from his nightmares, even though he wasn’t asleep.

Being drowned was one of his worst fears, right after being drowned _by a siren_.

As he stood on the deck the following morning, nearly at noon with special beeswax plugs in his ears and ties around his wrists that linked him to the railing, he wondered if it would not be easier if he had just jumped overboard and succumbed to the waves. He had a bad feeling about this. He’d felt off and worried ever since he had stepped foot on this damn ship and he was not confident that this would be a walk in the park like the Captain had promised.

The siren’s passage was narrow and intimidating. It was certainly wide enough that a big ship could pass through, but it would not take much before it would be forced into one of the sides, which were littered with all sharp edges. Dan noticed how many of the crew were putting on a brave face and pretending that they could do this as easy as pie but most of it was fake confidence.

Most of them were scared shitless and they didn’t look like they had personally survived a siren attack before. Most of the crew were fairly fresh-faced and they radiated youthful arrogance. They thought that they were on top of the world and that nothing could knock them down, not even water creatures with sharp teeth and deadly songs.

The sirens were going to knock them down. Dan could almost feel it in his bones.

They were asking for trouble to sail through this passage, even if mermaids awaited on the other side. Greed was going to be their downfall, Dan thought as he clenched his fists together and watched as they approached the slim passage. No amount of money should be worth that of your life. If he had thought it would do any good, he would have tried to reason with anyone but everyone just had stars in their eyes and arrogance in their stance.

They were all going to die.

It was bizarre to stand and watch the scene in front of him unfold without sound. He had gotten so used to being surrounded by sound every single second. The old ship creaked constantly and the wind shook it up even more. He had almost gotten used to always being able to hear the sounds of other people around him, even if it had gotten on his nerves at first.

Now he longed for it because it was unsettling as hell to see some of the more experienced crew navigate across the deck. It was mostly the young recruits that had been deemed faint of heart and therefore necessary to tie up lest they should jump overboard. Some of the boys beside Dan had protested but no one had dared to put up a real fight.

They were standing by the railing, which Dan had found a little odd but one of the older crew members had said that it was better to have vision over the sea to spot the creatures, since that supposedly took some of their power away. Dan couldn’t see the logic but he didn’t know enough about sirens to know if it was true.

So much of the creatures were woven with contradictory myths that it was difficult to figure out what was the truth.

They sailed undisturbed for almost ten minutes, slowly making their way through the narrow passage. The ship was gliding through slowly, as too much speed would be hazardous in this type of passage. Still, Dan wished that they would go faster. Anything to get them through this death trap faster.

His fellow newbies kept staring forward almost eagerly wanting to catch a glimpse of the deadly creatures. They were looking for trouble in Dan’s opinion and he tried to keep his glance down and ignore the uncomfortable tingle down his spine. Something felt wrong.

He tugged on his bound wrists and he didn’t like being “secured” as they had politely put it. It was for his own safety, they had told them all, but something was off. Dan tugged at the bound hard enough that the rope cut into his wrists with a slight burn.

If he hadn’t been standing so close to the other young men, he might not have noticed how one of them started leaning forward, partly knocking into Dan on the way. Dan turned his head and saw how everyone around him was staring outwards with their mouths falling open. Some looked gleeful and excited, other looked like they were trying to hide obvious worry.

Dan didn’t want to lift his eyes and look out. It must be the sirens; he knew that but knowing and seeing could be two very different things.

It wasn’t until the quartermaster came over to the line of the young men and tugged one of them free at the end that he forced his eyes up. Dan watched the movement in confusion, as most of the others were still too busy staring ahead. The boy the quartermaster grabbed a hold of looked confused as well, mouthing something that Dan couldn’t quite lipread but it didn’t matter because the big man, who dragged him along, had his ears plugged like everyone else.

Dan’s eyes followed the pair, and the skin on his arms erupted in goosebumps as he clenched his jaw.

They were walking to the edge, where people would have been made to walk the plank. Dan wasn’t the only one staring at them anymore, he could see some of the people by his side watching in confusion as well.

The quartermaster threw him in.

Dan’s eyes unwillingly followed his descent and he caught his first glimpse of the sirens. He had not expected there to be that many. A dozen were swimming along just that side of the ship. They moved through the water so easily and one grabbed hold of the young man and started to pull him down.

Petrified.

Dan felt utterly petrified even as everyone around him started to tug on their restraints. They were not tied down for their own safety. It had all been bullshit. They were sacrifices. The rest of the crew were dumping bodies to keep the sirens busy.

That was probably how the Captain had made it through the passage in the past. While the sirens were busy with their kills, the ship could slip through.

The quartermaster then turned his eyes back at the boys lined up for slaughter. So many young men had joined this ship. Dan had counted nearly thirty of them. How would they explain this away? The risk of living at sea? A bad outbreak of disease? An unexpected siren attack?

It would all be lies whatever they would tell the families.

They were here as live bait.

Another one was grabbed and pulled along and this time the young man’s face wasn’t painted with confusion but with clear fear. But struggling did little good and he was tossed over just the same.

Dan was still standing frozen and he felt a bit detached from the whole thing. He wasn’t sure if it was the absolute lack of sound but it was terrifying to just watch and be unable to do anything. Two more people were tossed overboard before he got the sense into himself to at least try to break the restraints, even if he didn’t have much hope.

He had to try and so he pulled and twisted with all his might, just like all the other boys beside him. They were too young for this. Reaching the official adult age didn’t mean that they were actually adults. They lacked life experience and now they would never get it. Another boy went overboard and then another.

Dan was next in line after the new boy that was pulled along. His whole body felt red hot with terror and he was getting panicked. He would be tossed out to a sea of sirens. They would clutch onto him, dig their sharp nails into his ears until the beeswax was out and then they would lull him into a false sense of security. He would die being nothing but a puppet as water filled his lungs and he wouldn’t even care. He wouldn’t even fight.

He would just roll over and give up. No human could resist the siren’s call. 

Just as the quartermaster turned around, eyes set on Dan, the whole ship shook. It flung Dan forwards, restraints catching painfully around his already bruised and abused wrists. Dan had barely gotten his footing when the ship suddenly moved in the other direction and he was thrown down once more.

If he had been able to hear, he would have heard the horrifying tear of strong wood against the sharp edges of the cliffs on either side. The ship shook again, groaning loudly which fell to deaf ears as the speed started to drain. It was taking in water, sinking due to a hole in the hull that no one on deck has seen happen.

The quartermaster had fallen down too but he got up and looked around. It was clear that something was wrong with the way that people were stressing about on deck but the man seemed to decide that he needed to get on with his work and he started stomping towards Dan, even as the deck shifted under his feet.

Dan did not want to be here. He needed to get away. No one was going to toss him into siren-infested waters. He wouldn’t allow that to happen. He was too young to die. He had hardly lived yet. His legacy could not be dying as siren bait.

The ship shifted again, hitting into one of the sides of the passage anew and when Dan fell forward this time, he fell all the way down. His hands came undone but he was still too slow to bring them up to catch his fall and instead landed painfully on his shoulder.

He blinked a couple of times, confused at being unrestrained and he brought his hands in front of his face in disbelief. Rope hung loosely around his wrists, oddly charred and flayed. He didn’t understand but he did know that now was not the time to question it.

Dan struggled to get on his feet as the ship shifted again. The quartermaster swung out after him but the ship moved and brought both of them out of balance. Dan ended up skidding across the deck and painfully being smacked against the side.

The quartermaster turned towards the bound boys and abandoned Dan for the moment, probably deciding that he was more trouble than he was worth. Dan wanted to curl in on himself and just close his eyes and pretend like the ship wasn’t falling apart.

It was sinking.

He could see people screaming, even if he couldn’t hear it. He spotted the Captain at the wheel and he was red in the face and screaming while pointing furiously at the men that couldn’t hear him. He looked entirely different from the calm and confident Captain who had given the rousing speech just last night.

The ship tilted sideways, catching onto the deadly edges of the passage one again and now it came to a complete stop. It only lasted a beat, before a rough yank brought it back from where it had gotten stuck and now it was just going downwards.

Whatever the sirens were doing, they were purposely and effectively sinking the ship. Dan had heard the other crewmembers mention how this passage was relatively shallow but it seemed that the water creatures had directed the ship to an area that was plenty deep.

They just sunk and sunk until water started to roll onto the deck. It felt like a cold shock to Dan’s heated skin but he still couldn’t make himself move. Despite his father’s best efforts, he was still quite a poor swimmer but even if he had been a champion, he doubted that he could outswim a siren. This place was isolated and he could never reach help in time.

He saw some people pile into the lifeboats but as soon as they set out, sirens jumped up from the sides and just dragged the whole boat down with surprising ease. The creatures must be extremely strong to do it so effortlessly.

Dan had never thought he would see a siren, let one this close but he supposed that was the only good thing to come from dying like this. As deadly as they were, Dan couldn’t deny their beauty. They were breath-taking to watch how easily they moved through the water and their water-kissed skin glistened.

Their bodies were lean and strong and their faces symmetrical and clean cut.

Water licked up Dan’s legs, continuing until his entire waist was engulfed and he was still just holding onto his little bit of railing. He had to let go, or he would be dragged down for sure. He likely would be pulled down either way, once the last of the ship was pulled under because of the pressure.

It would still be a kinder faith than a siren’s kiss.

But Dan’s wasn’t naïve enough to think that the predators would let him go so easily. His suspicious were confirmed when a male siren fixated his glance on him, just a stone throw away.

The siren bopped along in the water, his shoulder just visible over the surface and his arms spread out at his side. He was beautiful, his facial structure impeccable and the lines in his shoulders and chest attractive and his black hair somehow looked stylishly slicked back. But his eyes caught Dan’s attention the most. They looked blue this far away, piercing blue and Dan wondered if sirens even needed an alluring voice when they had eyes like that.

The siren swam towards him, slowly approaching him by gliding effortlessly through the water.

Maybe there were worse ways to die, Dan told himself.

Others would probably have prayed for being oblivious of their own death. It was a small mercy not to feel any pain after all, if the rumours about how sirens killed should be believed.

The ship sunk further down as the siren approached and Dan’s hands were submerged as well. He could no longer sit on the deck and his body automatically started to kick out his legs, treading waters, even as certain death narrowed in on him.

He could feel the water shift around him and he wasn’t sure if it was the sinking ship pulling him down or if it was the work of the siren with the mesmerising eyes. The siren stopped an arm length away from him, watching him intently with eyes that captured more than one colour. Sure, blue was the dominant one but Dan could see flecks of green and yellow in them as well.

In one rushed movement, the siren was suddenly in his space and two hands had Dan’s head in a vice grip. He winced and close his eyes as sharp nails dug into his skull but the grip had been nothing compared to the burst of pain that he felt in his ears a moment later. Nails dug in and tore up the skin of his ear canals and brought back some of his hearing.

Dan wished that the siren hadn’t because now he could hear screams of fear from the crew mates yet to be captured by a siren and the slashing sound of waves all around him, kicking up against the sides of the passage.

He looked up to see the siren’s face right in front of him.

The siren’s skin was pale, the fairest skin that Dan had ever seen, and small dustings of bluish scales were down the siren’s nose and along the jawline. Dan expected to see hunger, anger or any other negative emotion in the eyes of the beast that had just ripped open his ears but the expression was almost sombre.

Then the siren opened his mouth and Dan felt it hit him square in the chest. His feet that had been threating water dutifully started to waver and moving became a whole lot harder. He almost melted into the siren’s hands, which were still locked around his head.

The song was ineffable. It was reassuring and calming at the same time and it just made Dan want to fall into a deep sleep.

But it didn’t make him unafraid. He could still feel his heart race in his chest. He had heard stories that siren’s call made you actually want to die, to feed them as a thank you for their beautiful song but Dan didn’t want to die.

Still, he felt how his body was fighting to stay afloat on his own rather than melt into the welcoming embrace of the siren. All other sounds except from the song seemed to fade away and Dan started into the siren’s eyes.

He wondered if they could speak human language. People had different opinions about it. Dan wondered if it would matter, because how was a llama going to talk its way out from a lion’s jaw? He was just grasping at straws and his mind was trying to find some clarity through the haze that it had been put in.

Slowly, the siren moved closer to Dan’s face and Dan’s eyes flicked up to meet the sea creature’s eyes. He was terrified even as the predator looked eerily calm as it still cradled Dan’s head in its hands. Their noses bopped into each other and Dan’s eyes flickered down to the creature’s lips.

How many men had drawn their last breath of life against those lips? They were tinged slightly blue but they looked inviting. Dan blamed the song, even as he still tried to fight.

It was futile. He had lost.

He gave up. He actively stopped his legs from moving because he knew when to recognise when he was beat. It had been a skill that he had been forced to evolve because he had used to always fight, even when the battle was truly lost. Too many times he had to face his wasted efforts and now he knew how to tell when he was beat.

The siren had beat him.

“Do your worst,” he whispered, not caring if the creature could understand him or not.

It probably couldn’t but as Dan stopped swimming on his own, the siren looped his arms around Dan’s waist and held him up at the surface and the song stopped. Almost tentatively, the siren closed the distance between their faces and placed his cold lips on top of Dan’s burning ones.

The touch was cold and it was like it shot through Dan’s body like a nerve on fire.

He tried to breathe in, but his mouth was covered entirely before he had a chance and he had already lost his last breath. He felt the cold, cold water around him and he was moving down. His face went under and he was entirely tangled up in the siren. He could feel hands roaming his body.

Something stung along his thigh and it felt like a knife slashed across the skin.

Would the creature have enough mercy to kill him before it started eating his flesh?

He shut his eyes tightly and he waited for that sense of serenity to settle over him. That supposed blissful ignorance was nowhere to be found and Dan felt lied to. Maybe people had just gotten it all wrong, after all you could only be killed once and it wasn’t like you could like to talk about it unless you believed in reincarnation.

Dan’s body was still trying to tell him to push off this creature and try to make it to the surface.

_Fight, fight, fight, _it was screaming at him and Dan couldn’t deny it when it felt like the words were burning a hole in his chest.

He tried to struggle against the iron hold of the siren’s arms. He tried to push them apart, to unluck their lips. He regretted his decision to just let life take its course and accept himself as another creature’s meal. It wasn’t fair.

He wanted to leave. He wanted to breathe again. He wanted to survive.

He squirmed and pushed with eyes still closed because the water stung in his eyes. He could feel the pressure in his lungs and he didn’t want to know how long he had been without oxygen. Things were starting to turn even more hazy but he still tried to push the siren away.

He was surprised when he suddenly felt a shift and both the hands and the lips left his body. In surprise, his eyes snapped open and he saw the blurry outline of the siren floating in front of him. This deep underwater it was like the creature’s eyes intensified and they stood out clear even as everything else was blurry.

They looked confused.

Or maybe Dan was just projecting.

He wasn’t going to waste this opportunity for escape, now that he had fought so hard for it. His muscles screamed and every movement felt futile but he still tried to swim upwards. But it was like someone had tied cannon balls around his ankles and he was just hanging still in the water despite his best efforts.

He tried again, ignoring the burn in his entire body as he forced it to move. He didn’t look at the siren even as he saw it circle him slowly out of the corner of his eyes. He just moved his arms and kicked out his legs.

But the surface was so very far away. The siren had gotten them quite deep down and Dan could only see a little bit of sunlight reflected above him.

He moved to take another stroke with his arms but they refused to move. He felt the weightlessness settle in every part of his body and his lungs burned and screamed. Despite knowing better, his mouth opened in an attempt to draw in the life-necessary oxygen. Instead, he just felt how water rushed into his lungs and he became even more like lead.

Now he was not just floating. He was sinking like deadweight with nothing to drive him upwards anymore.

The siren was still swimming around him but it didn’t seem so threatening right now. He had gotten to drown normally because he was a stubborn bastard and he couldn’t just have stopped fighting to meet his death at the siren’s lips.

He sunk down, just like the ship had done before him, and his vision turned dark.

He didn’t feel how a pair of arms wrapped around him and carried him back towards the surface with the speed that only a creature of the sea could produce. He was a helpless prey in the siren’s hold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Reblog on tumblr](https://secretlywritingstories.tumblr.com/post/186772083408/siren-call-phan-siren-au) (thank you!)
> 
> AHH! If you follow me on tumblr, I started screaming a bit about this story last month when I started writing it. I was stuck by inspiration to write about sirens after a wonderful klance fic by wittyy_name (which is linked at the top notes). It doesn't follow the same story at all but the dynamic and the mythology inspired me.
> 
> I've always been a sucker for the mythical universes you can create to your own liking and I adore writing Dan and Phil into fictional universes, so I have honestly had a blast writing this. I've got the two next chapters prepped and I'm slowly working on getting the last chapter done too. I hope you stick around throughout August to keep up with this story. As always, feedback is hugely appreciated and I would love to know what you thought of the first chapter. I'd apologise that the boys don't really have any proper conversation in this first chapter but I promise that the second chapter makes up for the lack of chatting here. 
> 
> Next update is on the 11th of August, at 8 PM CEST.


	2. The Siren's Word

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dan hadn't expected to ever wake up after he'd been dragged down by a siren's kiss. Imagine his surprise when he finds himself in a cave with the very siren who decided not to kill him last minute.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Mild violation of personal boundaries and very brief fear of rape (nothing graphic at all and it's just a quick moment and the fear is proven to be unfounded but stay safe please)

Dan shot awake, coughing up water uncomfortably from his lungs with one hoarse wheeze after another. His throat burned and his entire body felt hot, itchy and in pain.

The ground beneath him was hard and he could feel the wetness under his palm, even as he coughed up another mouthful of water. He wanted to dispel any liquid from his system and he despised that the world had made water a necessity for life because right now he hated it.

It was only when the coughing subsided a little that he could even begin to process what the hell was happening. His eyes stung and his vision was blurry and his ears felt too hot and like someone had put a filter over them as sounds came and went.

His eyes recovered faster than his ears and he looked around to see himself in a small cave, filled with water except for the little rock cropping where he was sat. The only visible exit was opposite where Dan sat and he would not be able to get out of the cave without going through the water. And in that water was a siren.

A strikingly familiar siren.

Dan screamed, which tore out of his already abused throat painfully. He tried to scoot back only to move a couple of feet before he was against the cave wall. His thigh erupted in pain and he managed a quick glance to see his pant leg torn to hell and red seeping through the tear. All of his senses were telling him to get up and run but he doubted he could actually go anywhere except in the water with the siren, even if he had been able to make any of his limps cooperate, which he highly doubted right now.

His heart was jumping in his chest, tired but still strong.

How was it even beating? Dan could recall what had happened in flashes. The quartermaster had been tossing the young crewmembers overboard as bait, the ship had started to sink and Dan had managed to avoid sacrifice only to still end up in the water and become pray for a siren.

A siren who has swum up to him, sung and then given him the deathly kiss before pulling him down to a watery grave.

It was the same siren who lingered in the water’s edge and watched him with an unreadable expression.

Did sirens play with their food before eating it? Dan had never heard any rumours like that before. He had heard about this song and the kiss part before being submerged and devoured. That had happened. Well, almost happened.

Dan wasn’t even sure how he had managed to get away.

Of course, he hadn’t gotten away. He had gotten loose and tried to swim to the surface but he had been too weak. He had felt the air leave his lungs. He had drowned. He had died.

Or nearly died?

“What the fuck did you do?” he demanded to know, eyes ablaze with anger as he started at the siren.

The only plausible explanation was that the siren had pulled him back to the surface and into this cave. He couldn’t have done any of that on his own. The fear was back tenfold because what did the creature want from him?

Would it eat him one limb at a time, keeping him alive through the process to keep the meat fresh? He shuddered as that and worse scenarios came to mind.

“I pulled you back up to the surface.”

Dan’s head snapped around so fast that he heard a loud crack. He had asked a question but he hadn’t legitimately expected an answer. Let alone an answer spoken in his own language, words so clear as if the siren was a native speaker.

“You can talk?” Dan screamed, too overwhelmed and confused by everything to do anything else.

“Yes?” the siren answered and it had the nerve to look amused.

“Don’t you fucking smirk at me,” Dan growled, anger taking over for a moment before he remembered who or rather what he was talking to and he froze at the harshness of his own words.

The siren’s smirk just intensified as he tilted his head slightly to the side and looked at Dan like he wanted to pick the skin off his bones. It made Dan shudder and it wasn’t because he was soaked and exhausted in a cold cave.

“Most people would be thankful, you know,” the siren said.

“I didn’t ask you to drag me under to begin with,” Dan bit back, not understanding how he could speak so calmly. It must be the shock. Shock made people say weird things, didn’t it?

“Actually, you did when you and your crew decided to sail through the siren’s passage. It is an open invitation for us to attack, especially considering you were planning to hunt and capture merfolk, if you made it through.”

Dan frowned deeply. “How the fuck do you know that?”

The siren just shook his head. “It is my turn to ask questions. I already answered two of yours and you have yet to answer any of mine.”

Dan tried to pull his legs to his chest, only to flinch as the pain shot up his thigh again. He chanced another glimpse but he couldn’t see much for the fabric and the blood but it looked bad.

The siren noticed Dan’s glance.

“It looks painful.”

Dan allowed himself a snort at that. “No shit. You tore up my thigh. I might die of blood loss and you’ll be lucky since you didn’t have the guts to drown me.”

Dan wasn’t sure where the snarky attitude and defensiveness were coming from but he wrapped it around himself like a blanket and hoped that it could keep the terror a little at bay. It didn’t work when the siren swam to the edge of the water and effortlessly pulled himself up onto the rock.

It was big enough for both of them but Dan still felt like they were way to close and he tried to shift back, only to be captured by the siren’s blue piercing eyes.

“I could have drowned you if I wanted but you surprised me. You became mollified somewhat at my song but your reaction wasn’t normal. You shouldn’t have been able to fight back underwater.”

“Well, sorry to disrupt your neat dinner plans,_siren_,” Dan said, laced with sarcasm.

“Phil.”

“Huh?”

“My name is Phil,” the siren said.

It was an entirely too normal name for a mythical creature. They should have been called something grand and awe-inspiring. Not just… Phil. It sounded too plain for the beautiful and dangerous creature sitting opposite Dan.

“I didn’t know you guys would have names,” Dan said and tried to shift his posture only to wince again. Before he had even finished processing the pain, the siren had moved closer and his clawed hand wrapped around Dan’s hurt thigh.

Dan didn’t dare to move. He wasn’t sure about his bleeding out quip. The cut was alongside the outside of his thigh and if it had hit something important, he probably would have been dead by now but the sharp claws curved around the inside of his thigh and they could easily slice open his femoral artery. His breathing hitched as his eyes fluttered up to meet the siren’s.

To meet Phil’s eyes.

“I’m sorry for the injury, I got a little carried away when I got a taste of you,” Phil said and he sounded almost bashful.

Suddenly, Dan was a little too aware that a man-like creature had his large and lethal hand wrapped around his thigh. The words could have been spoken in a very different setting if one of them had not been a mythical creature.

“Okay? Err… can you take your hand off me? Please?”

“Since when are you polite?” Phil asked and his mouth curved up into a smile to reveal a row of sharp teeth that could easily tear human flesh off.

“Since I was reminded that you have pointy claws and sharp teeth,” Dan muttered, a little too honestly.

“If I wanted to kill you, you would already be dead,” Phil said as if that should do anything to reassure him.

“Great,” Dan said with an eyeroll. “Err… I was actually serious about the hand, unless you’re just waiting to slice through my fle-“

Dan’s voice cut off as Phil tightened his grip on his thigh, enough that Dan could feel the claws just barely pressing into the flesh beneath the fabric of his pants.

“I’m feeling out your blood vessels to see if your wound will be able to heal on its own,” Phil said. “Since you’re so worried about bleeding out.”

“If you want my honest opinion, then I’m more worried about a siren nearly drowning me only to pull me back up and store me in this creepy cave for fuck knows what purpose.”

“That was not very nice,” Phil said and sounded genuinely upset.

“What?”

“It’s not a creepy cave. This place is one of my favourite spots and you are disrespecting it without reason. I’ll let it slide since I can feel how scared you are but you don’t have to be mean for no reason.”

“I have a perfectly good reason!” Dan said and he was over Phil touching him, so he reached down to lock his own hand around the siren’s wrist to pull him off. He shouldn’t have done that because Phil just dug in tighter and Dan ended up hurting himself. He let go with a hiss and he was surprised when Phil then moved his hand out of his own volition seconds later.

The new nail marks weren’t deep or deadly but they still stung.

“I apologise. It was a reflex.”

“Stop apologising and tell me what you want with me instead! I’m only going to become more freaked out the more you wait. What is your masterplan? Huh? Why did you bring me here?”

“I couldn’t drown you,” Phil said.

It was not an explanation but he said it as if it was. Dan huffed out a frustrated breath and tried not to lash out again. His head was killing him, his hearing still a bit muffled, his thigh was throbbing, his throat felt raw and his butt had fallen asleep due to sitting on the rocky ground for so long. He was not in the mood to be toyed with.

“And why is that?”

“Because you’re… different.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Dan shouted.

“You tell me!” Phil shouted right back and it was the first time that Dan had ever heard that mild and beautiful voice be raised, despite how much Dan had screamed in the last ten minutes.

“I don’t understand…” Dan muttered. “I don’t know how to answer and I still don’t know what you want from me. Do you still want to eat me?”

“No, I don’t,” Phil answered and it sounded sincere.

“Well, that’s good to know at least,” Dan said with a tired sigh and slumped against the hard rock wall behind him. “Do you still want to kill me?”

“No,” Phil said and his voice was no longer stressed and high-pitched. Instead, it came out almost soft.

“Are you going to hurt me?” Dan continued.

“Not on purpose,” Phil said. “But I might if you grab me. I don’t like that.”

“No one likes that, Phil,” Dan said and his words made Phil blink a couple of times and look a little bewildered. It was only then that Dan realised that he had said the siren’s name out loud.

“What is your name?”

“Why should I give it to you?”

“It seems fair, since I gave you mine.”

“Well, I didn’t ask for yours.”

“How about a trade then?” Phil suggested and Dan perked up at that.

“Go on.”

“I’ll get you some materials to clean up your wound and bring you some food too. You must be starving,” Phil said and at the mention of food, Dan’s eyes flicked to Phil’s sharp teeth.

They weren’t that noticeable when he was just speaking but whenever he would grin, even just a little, his lips would lift and reveal the mark of a predator.

“Why would you do that?”

“Because your leg needs attention and your body needs nutrition,” Phil said.

“Why do you want to know my name?”

“Because you’re different and I want to put a name to your face. And maybe I’m hoping it can show you that we can be civilised and that I won’t suddenly turn around and chomp on your arm. I already said that I wouldn’t eat you.”

Dan flinched a little at Phil’s words. “But you could. You could eat me. Sirens eat humans. You’re a predator and I’m your prey. I think I’m still trying to process why you aren’t eating me.”

“Maybe everything is not as it seems,” Phil said, his voice laced with quiet contemplation. “And I gave you my word and I intend to keep it. I promise you that I won’t eat you.”

Dan looked up at the siren again. He seemed almost human when he was just sitting still and speaking so casually. If it wasn’t for the flash of teeth or glimpse at the clawed nails and the visible scales then Dan might have been fooled upon a quick glance. If he had looked closer though then he would have found more things that revealed the siren. Phil had gills that almost entirely disappeared into his neck but sitting this close he could still see them. He had scales on his chest and trailing all the way down to his waistline where they disappeared under a pair of loose shorts. Both his fingers and his toes were slightly webbed but not as much as Dan had expected. His arms were littered with patches of scales too, most noticeable on his forearms where he also had bits of raised material that looked to match that of his claws. He was made to tear someone apart. Dan’s eyes came back to Phil’s face, to the captivating eyes and the sharp teeth that was now hidden behind his lips.

Dan thought Phil might feel angry at being so openly observed but instead he just slowly opened his mouth and let Dan had a proper look at his teeth, almost like he had been able to sense that Dan was looking at all his most dangerous features. Phil’s teeth looked terrifying up close like this but it was ramified somewhat but the neutral expression on Phil’s face.

“My name is Dan,” Dan said softly and wondered if he would regret it.

Phil’s eyes flicked up to meet his and he looked positively delighted. His delighted expression included a very wide grin that revealed his teeth once more and Dan had to supress both a shudder and a laugh. It was quite the look and odd mixture to see someone with teeth like that act giggly and happy.

“Dan,” Phil said, sounded out the new word. He spoke in an impeccable accent, but the syllables always sounded just a little bit different. Dan wondered if it was because he had to manoeuvre the sounds through his larger than human teeth.

“That’s my name, don’t wear it out,” Dan said lamely and tried to ignore the turmoil of emotions raging through him. He was tethering on shitting his pants one second and almost wanting to burst out in laughter the next. He was experiencing a severe case of emotional whiplash.

“You’re funny,” Phil said, deadpan and Dan snorted before he could stop it.

He tried to shift his position again only to wince at the pain yet again. Phil noticed and without any hesitation he let himself fall backwards and into the water once more. His drop splashed water on Dan’s legs, but he hadn’t felt dry since the moment the ship had gone down.

“I’ll be right back,” Phil said, popping out of the water before he started to swim away, only to pause after a couple of strokes and tread waters as he looked back at Dan. “If anyone come in here, just tell them that you’re under my protection, alright?”

Dan hadn’t even thought about that until Phil brought it up. He might be deep in siren territory and just because Phil had promised that he wouldn’t eat him, it didn’t mean that the next siren passing by would say no to a free and defenceless meal.

“Like that’s going to matter,” Dan said, frightfully and tried to ignore how his heart was started to race and his palms turned sweaty again.

“It will. We have a code,” Phil said. “I’ll hurry. I promise.”

“Whatever,” Dan muttered, and he didn’t look out at Phil anymore. He was looking down at his torn and ruined pants and playing with the flayed edge of the material, even as it stung where it was stuck to his skin with blood.

Next time Dan dared to look up, Phil was nowhere to be found. Dan hadn’t heard him swim away but he suspected that the siren would move entirely soundlessly through water. It was their domain after all.

It dawned on Dan that it was the first time he was truly alone in a whole week. On the ship, there had always been people around him and even in the sleeping quarters, he’d been right next to someone at all times. 

Now he was alone and the rest of the ship’s crew had probably become siren food. It didn’t seem like it was usual to leave someone alive, at least from what Phil had said. Dan had little choice but to take him on his word because he had no way of verifying anything he said.

Dan wasn’t naïve. If anything, he was cynical.

He knew that his chances of making it out of this was slim to none. Even if Phil didn’t kill him, he would eventually die of dehydration or starvation or become the meal of any of the other sirens that lived in the area. He had no way of getting out of here and he doubted that ships came near this place unless they were foolish enough to risk their lives.

It was morbid and maybe a bit cruel, but Dan hoped that the sirens had at least eaten the Captain and that he had suffered through his death. He had been a proud and greedy man who should never have been allowed to decide the fates of the crew on his ship.

Dan’s family would never know what happened to him. Someone would probably know that they failed in their mermaid hunt eventually, as Dan suspected they had prepared byers lined up but he wasn’t so delusional to think that those types of people would reach out to a lowly deck hand’s parents.

“Hey…” called a soft voice, startling Dan out of his head as he looked to the edge of the water to notice Phil’s head lingering by the rocks. He hadn’t heard him come back either.

“You’re like a silent killer,” Dan said and then regretted that he once again had seemed to offend the siren, who frowned at him.

“It’s easy to move through water silently if you know what you’re doing. Humans just flop about too much for their own good,” Phil said and pulled himself up elegantly from the water once more.

He perched his butt at the edge of the rocks, his legs still dangling in the water as he pulled a pouch off his shoulder. Phil’s chest was bare but the whole front was covered in blue scales that glimmered as the light from a hole above hit them. Except the scales, it looked like a perfectly normal human torso. Dan’s eyes were drawn to the scales once more and he found himself wondering if they would be rough and coarse to the touch or if they’d be silky and smooth. He tore his eyes away before Phil could notice him staring. Again.

Phil pulled open the pouch and started to lay the content out in front of Dan. The first thing he pulled out was a pair of shorts, identical to the ones that Phil was wearing. Next a small container of something, and a bottle with some clear liquid in it. A towel and a couple of different bandages followed. Lastly, Phil put down a big bottle of water and an honest to god sandwich, which had Dan flabbergasted.

“A sandwich?”

“Yes? Do you not like sandwiches?” Phil asked, and he suddenly looked a little unsure.

“I do, I just didn’t expect you to bring me one. I was thinking more of a raw fish or something.”

“I can get you that if you’d rather…” Phil said and moved to take the sandwich back but Dan reached out and snatched it up before he could. 

“No, it’s fine,” Dan said, and he could hear his stomach grumbling at the appearance of food. He was indeed starving.

He was just about to take his first bite when he realised that it could be poisoned. He was technically Phil’s prisoner right now if you wanted to look at it in broad terms. Phil hadn’t strictly forbidden Dan to go anywhere since he had woken up from his near-death, but it wasn’t like he could actually leave either.

“Is something wrong?” Phil asked.

“No,” Dan said and bit into the sandwich despite his worries. He was hungry and death by sandwich was still a better way to go than drowning. He didn’t even care if Phil would eat his corpse. He’d be dead by then and unable to feel anything anyway.

Dan chowed down half the sandwich and drunk most of the water as they sat in silence. It felt good to have some food in his stomach but it was also starting to feel a little uncomfortable to throw food down so quickly. He begrudgingly put the half-eaten sandwich aside and as he did, he felt another flicker of pain shoot up his thigh.

“We should really look at that,” Phil said and eyed Dan’s leg. “I didn’t slice through anything vital, but it should still get cleaned or it can become infected. Will you allow me to help you?”

As Phil asked, he leaned in closer and put a hand on Dan’s knee, twisting it inwards a little so he could get a better look at the wound on the outer side of Dan’s thigh. Dan barely managed not to attempt to slap his hand away. It hadn’t gone well last time and he didn’t need those claws to dig into the intricacy of the human knee where they easily could cause permanent damage.

“Will you stop touching me?” Dan said and leaned his torso back, even as his legs remained still and still very much under Phil’s hand.

“It’ll be difficult to help clean it if I can’t touch you,” Phil said with a puzzled look on his face.

“There is a big difference between me allowing you to touch me and just doing it because you want to or feel like you have a justified reason. Have you sirens never heard of consent? Wait, never mind. I take that back. Of course, you haven’t…” Dan muttered.

Phil’s eyes flicked between his hand on Dan’s knee and Dan’s face for a couple of seconds before he carefully pulled back his hand.

“I have heard of the concept in fact. We are not savages. I just assumed you wouldn’t mind if I did it to help you.”

“Well, I do mind,” Dan said, voice clipped and harsh. “I don’t like strangers touching me, let alone someone who could rip the skin off my bones if I get too jumpy.”

“Then I must extend my apologies to you once again,” Phil said and sat further back to create more of a distance between them.

“Yeah, yeah… I’m guessing the liquid is disinfectant?” Dan asked and pointed to the small bottle.

“Yes, you should rinse out the wound first, then dry it, use the ointment to seal it and the bandage,” Phil said. He said it so easily, like he’d done it many times before.

“Do you bandage up humans often?” Dan asked and reached for the bottle, even as his side protested at the movement. He might only have the one serious cut but his whole body felt like one giant bruise and his throat was still throbbing a bit. He had almost gotten used to his slightly subdued hearing and it wasn’t so bad so he hoped that Phil hadn’t scratched up the insides of his ears too bad when he’d pulled out the beeswax.

“No,” Phil said. “But we get hurt because of humans quite often. A couple of my people sustained injuries in the attack from your crew as well. Those spiky sticks can do serious damage, even if our skin is thicker.”

The harpoons. Dan had seen them be readied before they sailed through the passage. He’d tried and failed to imagine what it would look like if one of those were driven through a siren. Of course, in those images the siren had been snarling, thrashing and trying to bite and claw the sailor wielding the harpoon. Now the image returned but instead if was Dan driving it through Phil’s torso and Phil didn’t do one thing to stop him. It left a disturbing feeling in his chest.

“I feel like it’s my turn to say I’m sorry then,” Dan said and looked over the bottle in his hand. It didn’t have any label or anything, but it bubbled slightly as Dan shook it.

“I appreciate that, though, I would understand if you didn’t. We didn’t leave any of your crew alive I’m afraid.”

Dan had known that objectively but hearing it said in such a calm and even tone still made him feel on edge. No one had survived. They had all been drowned and eaten. Dan was the sole survivor. For now, at least.

“They were not really my crew,” Dan said as he looked down at the gash on his leg and wondered if he could pull back the fabric without it hurting like hell. “I just boarded the ship last week. I hadn’t even realised that we were heading out to hunt mermaids. I thought it was just a normal merchant vessel.”

“You didn’t know?” Phil asked and his whole body radiated uncertainty and confusion.

“I didn’t,” Dan confirmed, looking at his leg and trying to peel the material back. It burned like hell.

“You have to take them off.”

“Excuse me?”

“Your pants. You have to take them off,” Phil repeated in the same calm tone he had used the first time.

Dan looked at Phil, how he was sat so casually, and he found himself wondering if some of the other siren stories were true. Some said that the sirens had sex with their victims, either immediately preceding or immediately following death. It was one of those rumours that Dan hadn’t really put any weight to since everything related to sex seemed to be exaggerated but he suddenly wondered if this was why Phil had pulled him out of the water.

Maybe he’d want to have his fun with Dan, use his body while he was still alive and conscious. Phil did have a tendency to reach out and touch him and there was still that nagging comment about getting carried away by Dan’s taste.

Dan gulped and looked up at Phil.

“You’re freaking out again. Why are you freaking out?” Phil asked with a head tilt. He looked like the innocence himself, at least if you ignored the natural weapons on his body. His posture was still lax and his expression showed nothing but confusion with a hint of worry.

“You don’t want to know,” Dan said through gridded teeth.

“I do, or I wouldn’t have asked,” Phil argued.

“You want to know?”

“If it is something that makes you scared of me, then yes. Otherwise how can I reassure you?” he asked, like it was so simple.

“It’s not your job to reassure me. It’s your job to eat me.”

“Are you still scared of _that_? I thought we covered it. I’m not going to eat you. How many times do I need to tell you that before you believe me?”

“Okay,” Dan said and sat up straighter and leaned back into Phil’s space. “You said that you wouldn’t eat me or kill me and that you wouldn’t hurt me on purpose. What did you mean with that last one? Are you planning on doing something where you have the potential to hurt me if you’re not careful?”

“You’ve lost me,” Phil said and slumped back, and he had the audacity to pout. Looking at him now, you wouldn’t know that he had such sharp and intimidating teeth.

“Are you going to force yourself on me?” Dan blurted out. “That’s what I started to think about, Phil. If you insist on knowing,” Dan added and he carefully watched for Phil’s reaction.

At first, it didn’t look like Phil really understood what Dan had said and Dan could already feel heat crawl up his neck at the prospect to have to explain it in more literal detail when it visible clicked for Phil.

Dan had expected him to maybe argue in his defence or reveal that to be his actual plan but promise some bullshit about being gentle. He had not expected that Phil would slide into the water and swim several paces away from Dan and dive back under water for a full minute. When he remerged, Dan’s nerves were completely shot but Phil didn’t pin him down with his predatory stare or opened his mouth to sing the alluring and deadly song.

“I won’t touch you,” he said, his loud and clear words ringing around in the echo of the cave. “And I would never do… _that_ to you unless I had your full consent. I don’t know what you think of us, sirens, but I don’t think we’re quite the beasts that you make us out to be. I didn’t mean to make you feel unsafe around me. I’ll stay in the water, if that makes you feel better.”

It did a little bit but more so, Phil’s words did a fairly good job of reassuring Dan. He sounded sincere, so burningly sincere that he needed Dan to believe him but not in a pretend way at all. He just didn’t want to be misunderstood.

“Okay,” Dan said as he breathed out a breath that he’d been holding. He tried to get back to getting access to his wound and he hated to realise that he had no way of doing that without removing his pants. Phil had been right and he had even brought him a pair of dry shorts for him to put on instead.

“I’ll duck under water for a couple of minutes, yeah?” Phil asked as he saw Dan look back and forth between the shorts and the disinfectant bottle.

“Yeah, thanks,” he forced out and he saw a little smile on Phil’s lips before he dove under water.

Getting the pants off turned out to be a mission and a half. Untying his shoes had been a task since it hurt to bend his one leg too much. But he eventually managed and reached the torture that it was to have to separate the fabric from his cut skin. He cursed under his breath, used every swear he’d learned during his week on the ship and there were plenty. 

He let out a triumphant scream as he finally managed to pull it fully away from the wound and shimmy out of the pants. He tossed them aside, along the wall and reached to the shorts. They would probably end just around the middle of the cut on his thigh but they were loose enough in the pant leg that he could pull the fabric back, so it didn’t touch the wound.

As he moved to stand, on unsteady legs, he let his eyes skim over the still surface of the water in the cave. He wasn’t sure how long Phil had been down there, but it had probably been more than just a couple of minutes. It was taking an embarrassingly long time for Dan to change.

“What the fuck am I doing?” he said to himself. “None of this even matter. I’m dead in a couple of days either way. No one ever survives a run in with a siren.”

He pulled the shorts up to his waist and marvelled at how soft the material was. It was like nothing he’d ever felt before and he wondered if it was something specially made by sirens. Phil kept insisting that they were civilised, and Dan was starting to be willing to believe it. Even if he didn’t like knowing that because if sirens and mermaids were related then mermaids likely resembled them in terms of intelligence. Dan knew how many mermaids were on display around the world.

Dan sat back down and he moved to look at the cut on his leg. It was about the length from his pointer finger to his thumb and it was deep enough to have bled a significant amount but thankfully it didn’t feel deep to the extent that it wouldn’t be able to heal. Hopefully, he didn’t need stitches. He reached for the bottle of disinfectant and poured just a little amount on his skin and promptly tilted it back and screamed in agony.

Sure, cleaning wounds could hurt but this was next level. What was in this shit? Knowing how much it would hurt Dan couldn’t make himself pour it again, even if he had hardly managed to clean it at all.

He looked out over the still water. He needed help, but Phil still hadn’t remerged. Fuck this.

“Err… Phil?” Dan called out.

It only took a second before Phil was peering up over the waters’ edge. He just brought his eyes and nose above the water line and his black hair flowed out around his head as he just looked at Dan, unspeaking.

Still, Dan could hear the question that he didn’t voice. He wondered why Dan had called his name and asking only with the expression in his eyes.

“I need…” Dan started to say and then sighed because he sounded ridiculous but he had little choice. He couldn’t make himself pour that burning disinfectant and sit still at the same time. “I need your help,” he forced out.

Phil swam over to the edge of the rock formation and brought the rest of his head above water. He still wasn’t getting on the rock.

“What do you need?” he asked carefully, scanning over Dan.

Phil’s eyes lingered on Dan’s bare legs. Dan was almost sure that he saw something flicker over Phil’s face but it vanished as soon as it appeared. Still, it was enough for Dan to feel a surge of heat at the suggestive expression.

“This shit burns like hell,” he said and shook the bottle in his hand. “I can’t… I can’t sit still…”

“If I have to help you then I have to touch you, Dan,” Phil said seriously, still just lingering in the water.

“I’m well aware of that, idiot.”

Phil frowned at the rude name calling. “But you just said-“

“I know! Just, stop making it weird and come here, alright?” Dan said with a huff of frustration and waved his hands in Phil’s direction.

Finally, the siren pulled himself up from the water and slowly scooted closer. He was so careful with his movements now, unlike how he’d just barged into Dan’s personal space before. Dan couldn’t help but appreciate the clear effort he was making and hate it a bit at the same time because the awkwardness hung heavily around them, filling up the entirety of the relatively large cave.

“Want me to both hold you and pour?” Phil asked softly. “I know this stuff is quite painful but it is necessary. It’s a special mixture we brew ourselves and it’ll make sure you don’t get an infection.”

Dan was more than willing to hand over both tasks to Phil. “Yeah. I know. Just do it quickly?” he asked, tried to pretend he didn’t sound like a massive whimp.

Phil only smiled at him, looking a little endeared before his expression turned serious again. “Do I have permission to touch your leg? I’ll have to press it down against the rock with a flat palm to ensure I don’t accidentally claw you again if you fight against me.”

Dan breathed out through his nose and his heart was speeding up in his chest for the thousandth time. It was just because a dangerous predator was this close, he told himself.

“You have my permission, for fuck’s sake I just asked you.”

“Just making sure,” Phil said. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

“I swear if you don’t-“

Dan didn’t get to finish his sentence because in a rush of movement that shouldn’t have been possible to pass so fast, Phil had pinned down his leg, almost painfully, and he expertly dozed the affected area with the bottle he snatched from Dan’s hand. Dan threw his head back and screamed, narrowly avoiding smashing his skull against the rock wall behind him. It burned not only in his thigh but he felt like his whole body ran hot and for a moment he wondered if he was allergic to that shit. He felt hot all over, flashes continuing through his body for a full minute before it finally subsided. He still felt too warm, a little on fire, but it had cooled considerable and he realised that he’d shut his eyes firmly in the process.

Once he opened them, he saw a slightly concerned Phil who had somehow also managed to grab a towel and wipe the wound clean while Dan’s had been withering in pain.

“You might have a bruise on your leg,” Phil said and he looked just below the wound where he had held Dan down. The skin was already a bit red and discoloured. “You were quite stronger than I expected.”

“It’s fine,” Dan said. What was one more bruise to his growing collection anyway?

“Next is the ointment if you’re okay?”

Dan just silently nodded while pulling his bottom lip between his teeth as he tried to ignore the burn still in his wound. Phil grabbed the ointment and looked up at Dan, seemingly for permission again.

Dan breathed out shakily. His arms were killing him and he didn’t very much want to lift them or anything right now.

“It’s okay. You have my permission, remember? Just… is that one going to hurt too?”

“No,” Phil said with a soft shake of his head. “It should feel pleasant actually.”

True to his words, Dan felt a sense of relief when Phil’s applied the thick crème with a little applicator hidden inside. It was pale grey and it felt wonderfully cooling against the heated skin. Dan slumped back a little, fully embracing this one moment of bliss and pain relief, as he let go of a deep sigh. Phil worked quickly and efficiently and soon was screwing the lid back on.

“Damn that’s some good stuff,” Dan muttered, suddenly feeling like he was floating.

“I’ll be sure to tell our doctor. It’ll seal your cut and it should grow together nicely. But I would still like to bandage it just to be sure. If you don’t mind?”

“Sounds like a plan,” Dan mumbled, feeling a little loopy.

“I’m going to need permission again, Dan,” Phil said, and his serious voice made Dan want to giggle for some reason.

“You have it, alright, Phil?” he said and his voice came out a little breathy and he felt the laughter bubble in his chest. “Was there something else in that ointment?”

“Oh, yeah, it might make you feel a little tired. There’s some calming qualities to encourage people to rest and heal.”

“Can it make you feel drunk or high?” Dan muttered and rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes. He felt like his head was swimming a bit.

“Possibly?” Phil said. “Some beings react differently.”

Dan swore under his breath before he let out a loud yawn. He couldn’t be bothered to raise his heavy arms again, so he yawned rudely and he wondered if Phil minded. He cracked open his tired eyes to see Phil just looking at him with a little pained expression.

Dan had slumped back and when he’d yawned, he’d thrown his head back, exposing the lines of his neck. Phil was staring really intently at his throat all of a sudden.

“Thinking of grabbing a snack?” Dan asked, voice loud and giggly, and he was definitely not in his right mind.

Phil shook his head and he looked a little ashamed. “No,” he replied. “I was thinking something else that I shouldn’t.”

“Ohh!” Dan mouthed. “I bet it was dirty, wasn’t it?”

Some part of Dan’s brain that wasn’t loopy and without filter warned him that this was not something he should be asking but that part was pushed so far back and he was all impulses right now. He just said whatever came to his mind. Damn, he suddenly didn’t like that ointment.

“I don’t think you want the answer to that,” Phil said, moving to sit opposite Dan and made him prop his hurt leg up. Phil hands moved so smoothly that Dan was a little mesmerised how effortlessly he wrapped the bandage and then secured it. It was like Phil was trying his best to touch Dan’s skin as little as possible and it made Dan feel a little bad.

Had he made the siren uncomfortable?

Wait, he was the one who should have been uncomfortable!

“Did you get me drunk on purpose?” Dan asked and he could have sworn that his speech was slurred. His stomach grumbled again and he spotted the partly eaten sandwich and scooped it back up and took a huge bite.

“No,” Phil said and moved back to sit at the edge of the rock, as far away from Dan as he could be without diving back into the water. “I promise you that I didn’t. I haven’t seen anyone react so strongly to the properties of the ointment since… Well, since… But you can’t be… You know what? Never mind. It’s not important.”

Phil looked so sad as he said that and Dan wasn’t really thinking clearly because he reached out to touch Phil’s arm in an attempt to be reassuring and he placed it right on the spikes perturbing from Phil’s forearm.

“Ouch,” he muttered and pulled back as a couple of droplets of blood started pooling in his palm. It was just enough to break skin, since Dan had enough sense to pull back once it hurt.

“You’re a danger to yourself, you know that?” Phil said and reached for the towel to wipe away the blood. He made sure not to touch Dan as he cleaned him.

“I was just trying to be nice…” Dan said and he found that blinking was becoming an increasingly demanding task. He just wanted to sleep.

“Why are you trying to be nice to me?”

“I don’t know?” Dan said with slurred words and a shrug. “I don’t want to die being mean to someone.”

“You’re not going to die,” Phil said, so softly that Dan’s heart shattered a little. It was spoken like a promise but Phil had no business making promises like that.

“I am too,” Dan said and slid down so he was lying flat on his back on the rock. “Even if you don’t kill me, a dozen of other things will before I ever leave this place. Maybe it’s okay… It wasn’t like I had a lot of plans for my life anyway. At least I got to have this, you know? I never knew that sirens could speak, or understand consent, or be gentle and reassuring… You might be a man-eating monster but you’re a pretty chill guy, Phil. And pretty too…”

Dan wasn’t really aware of the words coming out of his mouth anymore. His eyes were closed and his whole body felt heavy. He knew he was on the brink of sinking into a sleep. He wasn’t sure if it was a sleep he would ever wake from.

“Dan?” Phil called gently but his voice sounded so far away.

“Sleepy,” Dan tried to reply but he wasn’t sure if the words made it past his lips properly.

“Get some rest. I’ll watch over you, okay? Sleep.”

“Sleep…” Dan whispered, losing his consciousness. “Die…”

“No, just sleep. You’re not doing to die,” Phil said and his voice was sounding really far away at this point. “You can’t.”

Dan wasn’t sure he was processing words properly but he didn’t care because sleep wrapped around him like a warm blanket and he was so tired that he didn’t even care that the rock beneath him was hard and uncomfortable or that his skin was sticky with sea water and that his thigh still throbbed.

He had no choice but to trust that the siren would keep his word. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second chapter! And truthfully, this first meeting was the thing that inspired this whole story (which grew around this almost fragile dynamic that they establish). I hope I didn't make anyone uncomfortable with the brief breach of consent, I promise Phil did never mean any ill intentions with it. Sirens are just very tactile and he truthfully thought he was just helping Dan. After being corrected, he immediately adjusted his behaviour to make Dan feel safe. I love their quick banter back and forth in this so much. I hope you liked this chapter! Please come talk to me in the comments.
> 
> Next update will be in a week, on Sunday the 18th of August, at 8 PM CEST.


	3. The Siren's Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dan wasn't sure what to make of the siren who had spared his life. The same siren who now insisted on taking care of him and even promising that he could leave here unscathed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: A little violence but nothing graphic

When Dan woke up again, he was wrapped in a blanket and another bottle of water and sandwich was sitting next to his head. He couldn’t see any sunlight coming through the opening above him and at the mouth of the cave he could see the dark sky. Phil was swimming laps around in the cave oblivious to the fact that Dan had woken up.

Phil moved through the water like he was created to do just that. Dan supposed that he was. He looked in his element, effortlessly gliding around on the surface of the water. He came to the wall of the cave where he sped up, spun around and hit it with his feet. The movement propelled him out of the water and it was one of the most beautiful things that Dan had ever seen.

Water droplets followed the movement, as Phil slid through the air and connected with the water below him again, hardly splashing and just disappearing beneath the surface. A handful of seconds later, he remerged on the opposite side of the wide cave with a bright smile on his face.

He didn’t look one bit dangerous like this. He looked like a kid just having fun and it was difficult to process in Dan’s brain. He could still see the claws, the spikes on his arms, the scales and the sharp teeth but Phil somehow also had a softness about him. It had to be something about his soft expression.

Dan sat up, feeling a little more rested and the second he moved, Phil’s head turned in his direction and he shot Dan a bright smile as he began to swim over. He had to be making his movements deliberately slow because Dan had just seen how fast he could move and this was only a fraction of that.

“Hey,” Phil said carefully, pulling up and treading waters a couple of metres away from Dan’s rock. “I brought you more food.”

“I can see that,” Dan said and looked down at the sandwich. “Thanks?”

“Why did you say that like a question?” Phil asked, an adorable tilt of his head to the side to accompany the question.

“Because I feel like I should say so but I’m still a little confused.”

“Why?” Phil asked, bopping in the water and he really didn’t look one bit dangerous like that either. When he didn’t open his mouth enough to show off his teeth and with his arms below the water, he just looked like a guy who had a dusting of small scales up the bridge of his nose and the ridge of his jaw.

“Why are you feeding me?”

“Because you need food?”

Dan let out a snort and it sounded a little too soft but there wasn’t anything he could do about that. “I’m aware of that but it implies that you want to keep me here. Keep me alive.”

“Yes?”

“So, I am still a little clueless about the masterplan.”

“Maybe the masterplan is to make you fall in love with me and realise that we’re destined to be together and that we have shared more existences than you remember?”

Dan barked out a laugh and then winced as it agitated the bruises on his sides that he’d gotten from being thrown around the ship. “Good one.”

Phil sunk down a little further into the water and he didn’t speak for a moment. Dan didn’t know what to say, so he reached for the sandwich, surprised to find that it was his favourite and it tasted absolutely wonderful.

The silence settled between them again and it should have been tense and uncomfortable but Dan was still too tired to acknowledge it and he decided to just let everything sit for now. He was probably breathing on borrowed time but there really wasn’t much he could do against that unless he wanted to try to fight the siren or swim away on his own.

“I have a friend that sails by each month,” Phil said suddenly, breaking the silence as he swam closer to the rock. He moved close enough that he could just get his arms up to rest and then placed his chin on top of his folded hands.

If Dan had been someone who sketched, he would have felt an innate urge to capture the image in front of him. As it was, he wasn’t and he didn’t have anything with him to even do an attempt, so instead he tried to memorise the relaxed posture, the open expression and the expressive eyes.

“Oh?” Dan asked. He wasn’t sure if was surprised that Phil allegedly had a friend that could sail. It implied that this person was human. Siren and humans couldn’t be friends. It went against their fundamental natures but after having spent several hours in Phil’s company both conscious and unconscious, Dan had a feeling that if any siren could manage it then it would have to be Phil.

“He’s captain of a small crew, just a handful of people. They pass through here once a month and they always stop by to say hello.”

“How did you meet them?” Dan asked, still a little suspicious against his best efforts.

“They transport violent prisoners,” Phil said. “One of them had gotten loose just outside of the siren’s passage. Before they managed to subdue him, he had managed to throw himself and the captain overboard.”

Dan’s blood ran cold and unwelcome images of his follow young crewmates being tossed over the side resurfaced. It only became worse when he remembered Phil’s song and how he’d been pulled under water, deeper and deeper until he couldn’t breathe.

“And?” Dan asked hesitantly, seeing as Phil had stopped upon seeing the scared expression on Dan’s face.

“We killed the criminal. Nearly killed the captain too, except… he knew our customs and before the song rendered him… immobile, he asked for a test of innocence.”

“A test of innocence? What’s that?” Dan asked, suddenly more intrigued than terrified.

“It’s an old custom. Sirens are protectors of the ocean’s creatures and we shipwreck and drown only those who come into our territory uninvited or those who attack us. The captain and the prisoner were only at the edge of our territory and we listened when he asked us to evaluate his innocence. We asked him questions about his intentions, using our siren voice to ensure that he was telling the truth. It quickly became clear that the Captain Liguori did not mean to disturb us or hunt us or our fellow sea brethren.”

“So, what? You just let him go back onto his ship?”

Phil nodded. “Yes.”

“Just like that?”

“He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Kind of like you,” Phil said and looked up at Dan with a piecing stare that added a layer on his words that Dan couldn’t interpret.

“Shame, I don’t have a ship to return to then,” Dan said, a little bitterly.

“Well, you could board Peej’s when he comes by. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind bringing you back to the mainland. Like I said, he stops by and says hello when they pass.”

Dan frowned at that because even if Phil’s words were perfectly comprehensible, he couldn’t quite believe that he was willing to just let Dan go. He was still waiting for the other shoe to drop and for Phil to reveal his true intentions.

“You would let me do that?”

“Of course,” Phil said, even as it looked like those words brought him immense pain. “I don’t want to hold you against your will, Dan. I just want you to be happy.”

It was too cheesy and spoken with too much emotion for a deadly creature that had known Dan for less than a day. Yet, it sounded so sincere that Dan had a very hard time dismissing it.

“So, when is this friendly Peej supposed to sail by?” Dan asked, trying to ignore Phil’s words even as they embedded themselves into his memory and locked in there with a familiarity that Dan couldn’t understand.

His skin felt hot all of a sudden and he didn’t know if he was blushing but he just most certainly felt like he was burning.

“In a week or so? He’s due soon,” Phil said and let himself glide fully back into the water. “If you want, I’ll swim you out to the meeting place and you can hitch a ride.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that,” Phil repeated but he looked like someone had killed his grandmother as he spoke. What was making him so damn sad? He could not have gotten this attached to Dan already.

Dan took another bite of his sandwich, again reminded how it had the perfect mix of meat, vegetables and dressing. He chewed as Phil laid back, floating on his back and closing his eyes.

All sounds that could be heard was Dan’s silent chewing and the gentle movements of the water. Until Phil was suddenly twisting in the water, rolling and being pulled down by something.

Dan’s heart jumped into his chest as he saw Phil just disappear into the depths of the water.

“PHIL?!” he shouted, not proud of the panicked tone of worry as he shrieked.

He was debating the pros and cons of jumping into the water, even knowing that he would probably just get himself killed trying to go up against something that could pull down a siren.

Phil appeared a moment later, smiling all over his face, but Dan could see a large shadow in the water circling around him. He looked too calm.

“Are you okay?” Phil asked worriedly. “You sounded scared.”

“Scared? What happened? And what is that?” Dan asked, now standing on his shaky legs and he pointed at the shadow still circling around Phil’s waist. It was about the width of a human but at least three times as long.

“Oh, that’s just Tony. He was sad that I hadn’t stopped by to play with him tonight, even if I told him that I was busy,” Phil said, speaking towards the water’s surface and the shadow still moving around.

Dan relaxed, just a little. He had forgotten that Phil was actually a terrifying sea creature in his own right. It stood to reason that he could bond with other sea creatures, he had already said that the sirens protected the mermaids.

“What is Tony?” Dan asked, stepping forward just a single step to better peer into the water. The water was pretty clear, and he could now see that the shadow appearance of Tony might just be because he was dark.

“Hold on, I’ll introduce you. Let me just talk to him,” Phil said and dove back under.

Dan watched the two watery outlines for a minute or so before Phil popped his head above water again.

“So?”

“He’s shy,” Phil said, as if that was any explanation. “He’d like to sniff you out first. Can you put your feet in the water?”

“No,” Dan said instinctively without any thought. “I’m not putting my feet into the water for some unknown sea creature to nibble on!”

“He’s a sea serpent,” Phil explained. “But he’s young and not used to be around creatures that are not from the sea. His teeth still have yet to come in so even if he does nibble on you, it won’t hurt.”

“I’m not sure if that’s a whole lot of comfort, Phil,” Dan said but against his better judgement, he sat down at the edge of the rock and prepared to lower his legs into the water. His heart was racing in his chest as his feet made contact with the water and he promised that if he made it out of this whole ordeal alive, then he was never going near the ocean again. It was terrifying.

Dan felt something slime brush against his feet and he pulled them up slightly but not out of the water. Phil swam closer, moving his hand near Dan’s legs but never touching. He seemed adamant about not doing that without Dan’s explicit permission.

“It’s okay,” Phil spoke softly, looking at the baby sea serpent through the water. He did a couple of clicks with his tongue that Dan figured might be another language. He was a little started when Phil switched back to human language. “Dan is a friend.”

He said it so easily, so earnestly that Dan couldn’t even make himself open his mouth to argue. They weren’t friends. They were half-hostile acquaintances at best. Certainly, the weirdest pair of prey and predator ever. But friends?

Dan felt the smooth scales against his legs again and then something soft and silky prodded his calf. It tickled a little but it was surprisingly pleasant. The shadowy figure stared to move closer to the surface and carefully a head peered over the water’s edge, just a couple of centimetres. It was enough that Dan could make out dark expressive eyes, a flat head with cute flaring nostrils and curling long ears. Tony was a very dark grey and he looked oddly soft and adorable for something that should have been very scary.

“He’s pretty,” Dan said.

Phil made a couple of clicks with his tongue and it made Tony lift his head a little more, bringing his mouth above the water’s surface. He opened his mouth a little and Dan could just see gums. Tony emitted a whole row of clicking sounds to match Phil’s. They made Phil smile and he replied with a couple of clicking sounds of his own with a wistful expression on his face.

“Care to share?” Dan asked.

“Oh,” Phil said, eyes snapping up to meet Dan’s. “He was just asking if- I mean he was saying that you seem nice.”

It didn’t seem like that was the truth, at least not the full truth. Dan could only guess that a lot of clicks meant more words had been shared than something so simple but he had no way of knowing if Phil didn’t want to tell him. Dan also had no claim on the private conversation, even if it piqued his interest.

“I never knew baby sea serpents could look that… soft. I always imagined that they were born to be more terrifying.”

Phil let out a soft huff of amusement. “Well, Tony will grow up to be quite big and have sharp teeth to match, so I fear that he will match your image of a monster. It was Tony’s mother who brought down your ship,” Phil said offhandedly.

Dan remembered the creaking of the ship, how it had been flung side by side by a force no of them had seemed to be able to identify. A sea serpent had brought them down. Damn, they had never stood a chance.

“Is that normal?” Dan asked and he knew that he was too curious for his own good but it was pretty much all that he had left and Phil hadn’t seemed to mind answering his questions before.

“No, we’ve never enlisted their help before. But that ship… that Captain, he’s been through the passage before. Normally, we can sing people to crash their ships themselves but they, your old crew, they had managed to find an effective way to block the sound and they distracted us with… sacrifices.”

As Phil spoke, he looked down on Dan’s wrists and made Dan follow his eyes. He’d almost forgotten about his wrists; they were just another addition to his massive bruise collection. They were a reminder of what his crew had done to him, what they had intended to do to him.

“We got fooled the last time, too occupied with two dozen sailors in our waters and they got to the mermaid’s cavern. They managed to take six before we came to their aid and chased them out. Even so, they made it away. I doubt many men were still on the ship by time they were done tossing people out but… they still won. Actually, I have a question for you, if you won’t mind?”

Dan was still trying to process everything, reeling a little that the captain and the few men close to him had been so willing to sacrifice human lives for riches, but he nodded all the same.

“What do you want to know?”

“Did… did the other young crew members go hunting willingly or were they unaware like you?” Phil asked, and he sounded pained.

Dan almost wanted to say that they had all been prisoners, innocents that the sirens had essentially slaughtered in cold blood. He didn’t have many means of harming Phil. He hadn’t had one so far but Phil seemed to care an awful lot about the concept of innocence for someone who were supposedly a ruthless killer.

But he couldn’t lie to Phil and surprisingly he didn’t want to bring him any pain.

“Everyone else seemed to know what they got themselves into,” Dan said in a small voice as he recalled the excitement on most of the crews’ faces as the Captain had talked about the plan to get rich. “They didn’t know that they’d be used as live bait but they were signing up to hunt mermaids and get rich. We were told that we were to be restrained for our own safety, lest we hop into the water despite the earplugs.”

It looked like a whole lot of weight lifted off Phil’s shoulders. “Thank you for telling me.”

“Just saying the truth,” Dan said with a shrug as he tried to downplay it and he watched as Tony swam a little closer, still cautious as his very soft snout made contact with Dan’s knee which was just above the water.

Tony let out a few more clicks and then looked back at Phil.

“He’s saying that you’re warm,” Phil translated. “Feels nice, he says.”

Dan hummed. “I’ve always been running quite hot, ever since I was a child. Glad he approves though. Do you think that I can… no, it’s stupid…”

“What?” Phil said. “I’m sure it’s not.”

“No, it definitely is. Like stupid in the way that someone stuffs their hand into a narrow space only for it to be snapped off a moment later.”

“You want to pet him?” Phil guessed and the way Dan’s mouth fell open and how sheepish he looked was enough of an answer. “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind,” Phil added.

Phil made a long string of clicks in Tony’s direction and Tony perked up, eyes bright as he swam over to the left side of Dan and carefully nosed where Dan’s hand was resting along the edge of the rock formation.

Dan lifted his hand carefully and put it on top of Tony’s head, stroking back slowly. The scales were slick under his hands, almost soft and Dan wondered if the scales on Phil’s face, arms and chest would feel the same.

Tony let out a few clicks and he sounded delighted. It certainly made Phil crack a smile.

“He likes you. I hope you know that he’ll now come by every day to see you for this whole week,” Phil said with a giggle. “Unless I tell him to get lost. I can if you want me to.”

Dan shook his head softly and tried not to pay attention to the implications of Phil’s words. “I don’t mind,” he said and chanced another stroke of his head. Tony practically chirped and it sounded so cute. “Maybe sea creatures aren’t so scary after all.”

Dan kept his eyes at Tony as he spoke but he could hear a sharp intake off to his right, undoubtedly coming from Phil. Dan couldn’t make himself look up and meet Phil’s gaze. He hadn’t purposely meant to include Phil in the category but it seemed like his subconscious had other plans and he couldn’t exactly deny it.

Dan kept petting Tony, who seemed to be almost purring at this point, bopping his head up into Dan’s touch, heartily welcoming it and Dan wondered if it might be a sea creature thing to be tactile as well.

“I’ve never seen him take to anyone quite like that,” Phil said and hesitated for a beat before adding, “at least not any human.”

Dan just hummed in acknowledgement that he’d heard Phil even if he wasn’t sure what to make of that belated addition.

“Do you really mean that I can just say here until I can hitch a ride on your friend’s ship and leave just like that?” Dan asked and finally dared to look over at Phil, who crossed his arms but nodded earnestly.

“Of course. I’ll watch out for you, bring you water and food,” Phil said. “And I’ll take you out to my friend.”

“Why are you being so nice?” Dan asked, and he knew he hadn’t quite shaken his suspicions about something being off about this whole thing. “It’s one thing to choose not to kill me, if you do see me as innocent or whatever, but it’s another thing to go through all this trouble and actively help me.”

“Did it occur to you that I might just be a nice person?” Phil asked and he quirked up an eyebrow and he looked amused.

Dan grabbed his water bottle and downed a couple of gulps to stall answering right away. He didn’t want to comment on how Phil had called himself a person. The word stood out in Dan’s head because technically only humans could be people but Phil certainly was the most person-like non-human that he’d ever met.

“Maybe, I still have trouble believing it. We’re talking years of fear of sirens and the ocean, Phil. It’s not going to vanish just because you’ve been decided not to kill me and you’re doing things to make up for hurting me. It’s nice but I will need some more time to believe it to be true.”

“Good thing that I have a week to show you then,” Phil said with a bright smile and he didn’t look offended or deterred one bit. “Just you wait, I’ll show you,” he promised.

“I look forward to it,” Dan said, a shy smile on his lips.

It was arguably the weirdest week of Dan’s life. Phil hung out in the cave most of the time, he brought Dan meals and water three times a day. Tony joined them every evening and Phil had added four more blankets to Dan’s little bedding area and given him more clothes to borrow.

Phil never touched him, except to check the wound on Dan’s thigh after being granted explicit permission. Mostly they just talked and Dan learned more about siren culture that he had ever thought that he would. They lived above water for one and merfolk, not mermaid as humans called them, where the ones that lived underwater. They had also adopted a lot of customs from humans and Phil revealed that they on occasion had human companions staying in their home. Siren were also significantly more long-lived than Dan had thought as Phil revealed that they could grow to be a couple of thousand years old. Unfortunately, Phil refused to answer exactly how old he was despite Dan’s obvious curiosity.

But they didn’t just talk about sirens. Phil seemed uncharacteristically interested in Dan’s life and at first Dan had found it a little weird because no one ever had wanted to hear him ramble about his life or his interests but Phil never looked bored or annoyed. He listened intensely and he particularly seemed to enjoy when Dan talked about something he clearly loved. Dan would pause when he realised that he was rambling but Phil would insist that he kept going and that it was so great to hear excitement in his voice. Dan had blushed at that, which had made Phil giggle and it certainly didn’t feel like they were a siren and the siren’s pray anymore.

Dan found that he enjoyed himself for the first time in a long time. Phil had been surprisingly easy to talk to, from the very beginning, even when he’d been terrified for his life. It was like they had clicked into place and already known each other for ages. On the morning of the seventh day, Dan woke with a bit of a heavy feeling in his chest. He was excited to head out of this cave and he hated being trapped on this little piece of rock cropping and the constant moisture in the air that was making his hair a curly mess and his skin constantly salty.

But he was going to miss Phil. He would never admit it out loud but he could admit it to himself. Dan had a few friends back home but he’d never been truly close with someone. Everyone always had someone they were better friends with than him. He was never someone’s first choice but he felt like that with Phil, which was a bit ridiculous given their circumstances, but Dan couldn’t help how he felt.

While Phil would normally be here when Dan woke up, swimming laps and ready to do tricks the moment he noticed that Dan was awake, he wasn’t here this morning. Phil had mentioned last night, before Dan fell asleep, that he had to attend a weekly meeting that he couldn’t miss but he promised to rush over with breakfast as soon as he could.

Dan had told him not to worry and that he would survive on his own for a little while.

He should not have chosen those words.

Dan had let himself be lulled into a false sense of security after a week of just being around Phil and Tony, who were both softies at heart. He had forgotten that he was deep into siren territory and that Phil was just one out of a whole pod. He had forgotten that if a siren were to happen upon a human in their territory then they would sing them into obliviating, drown and eat them.

Dan saw the small ripples near the entrance to the cave and he smiled as he waited for Phil to poke his head up and say something about the breakfast train arriving or anything similar. Only when a face appeared, Phil’s name died in Dan’s throat.

The siren looked similar to Phil but he most certainly wasn’t Phil and Dan didn’t get one word out until he heard the siren’s song. He tried to stand up but he just stumbled forward. His throat felt tight and his head was swimming and he felt like he had forgotten how to breathe.

On the first day, Phil had said to say that he was under Phil’s protection if anyone came by. The words of advice shot to the forefront of his mind but he couldn’t get his body to cooperate. He could barely hold his weight up and all his limps felt like lead.

The siren lingered by the cave mouth, still singing and it seemed a little confused that Dan hadn’t thrown himself into the water yet. Dan clutched his hands harder into the hard rock beneath his palms. He wasn’t going to be an easy meal.

He’d asked Phil why he thought that Dan had been able to resist his song, at least somewhat, but Phil had just given a vague answer and then changed the topic. Dan hadn’t pushed it.

But whatever it was, right now he was thankful for it. Maybe Phil would come back in time. However, Dan wasn’t sure what he expected Phil to do. Did he expect him to fight someone of his own kind of Dan’s sake? Someone who he might be related to if the family resemblance was any indication.

Dan was dead meat. He had been foolish to think that he could get out of here with his life.

The siren seemed to give up luring Dan out into the water with his song and instead swam towards his rock cropping with alarming speed. He came to a halt just as one of his hands touched the edge of rock and the other flung out, too quick, to lock around Dan’s arm and he was pulled in.

He fell head first into the water and he was trying to get up, to get back to the surface to draw his breath. He tried to yell out Phil’s name, either to summon him or make the other siren hesitate but all he managed was the open his mouth under water and feel how liquid started filling up his lungs.

He could see the siren circle him, and he grabbed Dan’s arm or leg and yanked him down every time he tried to swim upwards. The siren was still singing, undeterred and he had a hungry look in his eyes. He looked like a proper predator and Dan’s muddled brain replaced the siren’s face with that of Phil’s.

He saw the hungry eyes as the siren locked both of his arms down with strong hands and claws digging into the flesh of his arms. He was moving in, going for the deadly kiss even as Dan had no more air in his lungs.

But before the siren’s lips sealed over his, he was suddenly yanked loose, claws trailing scratches in their wake as someone ripped them apart. Dan was disoriented and his lungs were without air but something strong pushed him upwards with so much force that he was thrown a little out of the water as he breached the surface.

His body fought for survival, coughing and coughing up water as Dan weakly swam toward the rock of safety. Thankfully, he had been pulled down just beside it or Dan knew he would never have made it. He felt half dead and exhausted but he managed to pull himself up to land and it was only then, after another violent cough that brought up the rest of the sea water from his lungs, that he heard it.

Vicious snarls rang through the air and Dan saw two sirens thrashing about, locked in a battle, scratching and screaming in a language that Dan couldn’t understand. Phil had come to save him. Phil was fighting against the siren who had almost killed him.

“Phil,” Dan called out weakly and he didn’t know what he meant by it but he just needed to call his name. Phil couldn’t get hurt because of him. It wasn’t right. Phil might have signed himself up to protect Dan, which Dan didn’t fully understand, but it didn’t mean that he should pay for it with pain or worse death. Could sirens kill each other?

The sirens thrashed until they were near the cave fall and Dan’s heart leapt in his chest in relief when he saw that it was Phil that pinned the other siren hard against the rock. Phil’s hands were locked security around the other’s shoulder and he threw him against the wall hard. Phil was screaming in foreign syllables but Dan could tell that he was furious even if he couldn’t understand the words.

The other siren kept thrashing, screaming back and trying to get free, until he suddenly stopped when Phil yelled something in a particular tone. He sounded almost in anguish and Dan desperately wanted to know what he had said because the other siren just went completely limp in his grip and stared at Phil with a mouth gaping wide in surprise.

Phil let go of the other and put some distance between them and he looked down at the water. Dan could see their mouths moving but they were talking in hushed voices now and Dan couldn’t even make out the tone of their words anymore. He could make out that the other siren looked increasingly worried and Phil looked sad and mad at the same time and like he didn’t want to hear what the other was saying.

Then the other siren suddenly looked over at Dan with a piercing glance and Dan felt his body rush with uncomfortable warmth. He wondered if the siren was about to speed over and pull him under again because he did not look happy.

“Phil, are you okay?” Dan asked, and his voice sounded rough and deep.

“I’m fine, Dan,” Phil called back.

“You’re an idiot,” the other siren said, in human language this time.

Phil said just a single word in the foreign language but if Dan would have to guess, it would be the equivalent of _don’t_or _stop _based on tone alone.

The other siren started swimming toward the rock with Phil trailing beside him. Dan’s heart speed up at the image of the two predators approaching him and his instincts were telling him to run away. But his rational part ruled and he guessed that Phil had settled something between them that meant the new siren wasn’t going to go for another attempt on Dan’s life.

Treading water side by side, Dan could see just how much the two looked each other.

“This is Martyn, my brother,” Phil said a little shyly and almost sounding embarrassed. Well, that explained the resemblance.

Dan looked over at Martyn, who was watching him with narrow eyes, clearly still suspicious.

“Sorry for trying to kill you,” Martyn said. “I just figured that you were one of the sailors from the hunting ship we brought down a week ago.”

Dan looked over to Phil, wondering if Phil hadn’t told Martyn that detail while they had exchanged words. Martyn caught it and mumbled something under his breath in the foreign language.

“He is,” Phil said. “But he wasn’t going here on purpose. He’s innocent, Martyn.”

Martyn looked over Dan once more and spoke in the language that Dan couldn’t understand. Phil bristled a little at his question and crossed his arms and it sounded like he defended himself.

“What are you?” Martyn suddenly asked Dan and though Dan could understand the language, he couldn’t understand what Martyn was asking him to answer.

“What?”

“Martyn. Leave it alone,” Phil interjected. “It’s none of your business.”

“None of my business, huh? Really? If it’s your business, then-“

Phil said something in the foreign language again and it sounded like he was pleaded his brother to drop the topic.

“You must realise how frustrating it is to talk in front of me like that in a language that I can’t understand,” Dan muttered and sat up a little straighter. As he moved, he felt the burns on his shoulders, where Martyn’s claws had dug in but the cuts were shallow, no deeper than the one Phil had left on the inside of his thigh a week ago and those were pretty much gone by now.

“Tough shit,” Martyn said. “Why were you on a merfolk hunting vessel if you’re innocent?”

“I didn’t know it set out to hunt mermaids! I mean merfolk,” Dan explained and looked at Phil, who he had already told the story during their week together. “My father signed me up to get my sea legs and he missed the coded language. I didn’t know until we were already at sea.”

“Hmm…” Martyn said and it looked like he mulled over Dan’s words before he turned to Phil. “Did you kiss him when you pulled him under?”

Dan sputtered a little at Martyn’s bluntness and Phil pulled his mouth into a tight line and he looked a little bashful. It wasn’t like Dan could forget about that kiss. For one, he had thought that he was about to draw his last breath ever and stuff like that leaves an impression all on its own. Then there was the memory of how cool and comfortable Phil’s lips had felt against Dan’s hot lips and how it had helped to soothe the heat in his body. It had felt almost like a kiss of salvation, except Dan would have died instead.

“I did,” Phil said, very pointedly not looking at Dan, who was fairly sure that he was sporting an aggressive blush on his cheeks.

“And he still doesn’t know? _Phil_,” Martyn whined out his brother’s name.

“You need to leave,” Phil said, ignoring Martyn despite looking like he knew what he was implying but not saying. “You shouldn’t even be here.”

“Of course, I had to come here. You’ve been essentially gone all week and I knew something was up. I just didn’t realise that it would be _that_,” he said and nodded towards Dan, who had a feeling he should be offended.

“I have everything under control. Peej will be by today or tomorrow and Dan will board the ship and get back to his home,” Phil said and it sounded like he had to force out the words and they grated his throat painfully.

“Oh, Phil,” Martyn said and he sounded sad all of a sudden. Sad but resigned. “You know best, I suppose, but you’re signing yourself up for a lot of hurt if you’re right.”

“I can handle it,” Phil growled. “Now leave. I just got Dan not to be afraid of sirens anymore and you thoroughly ruined that.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” Dan said, speaking for the first time in minutes. He hadn’t meant to say it since he had just been listening in on the bothers’ conversation but it had just slipped out. It was the truth though. Dan had been terrified of Martyn when he’d pulled him under and tried to kill him but he still wasn’t afraid of _Phil_. Phil who had thrown himself against a siren about to feed without any qualms about getting hurt.

A couple of days ago, Dan had gotten Phil to confess that sirens could get very wrapped up in the feed and act a little irrationally, which was why Phil had sliced up Dan’s thigh. It was highly dangerous to get between a siren and its prey but Phil had done it without a second thought.

Martyn looked at Phil, then at Dan and then back at Phil and he shook his head and muttered something in the foreign language again before he switched over. “I’ll leave but I will be saying I told you so later.”

With that remark, Martyn ducked under water and swam away, the only indication the slight waves. Only when he was gone, did Phil let out a hiss of pain and he moved to hop up onto the rock. Phil twisted around to look at his back and he had deep claw marks across his lower back.

“Phil,” Dan said in a whisper as he took in the damage. Martyn hadn’t pulled any punches.

“It’ll heal soon enough,” Phil said with a forced smile. “I mean it. I’ve had worse, by Martyn actually and I gave him a pretty nasty gash over his stomach just now. It’s inevitable when you’ve been brothers for that long.”

Dan didn’t quite like the sound of that but at least Phil was in good spirits.

“Still… let me see?” Dan asked carefully and scooted closer.

Phil willingly turned his whole broad back and let Dan have a closer look.

“What about you?” Phil asked and looked at Dan over his shoulder. “He nicked your shoulders, didn’t he?”

“It’s not bad,” Dan said. “But you could definitely use some of the disinfectant and ointment.”

“I hate that stuff,” Phil mumbled and slouched forward.

“Want me to do it for you?” Dan asked before he’d considered the implications.

They hadn’t really touched in the past week and whenever they had, it had always been Phil initiating. It had been Phil touching Dan and Dan only touching Phil by extension. Now he was offering to touch Phil by himself.

“Are you sure?” Phil asked and he sounded like he was more worried about Dan’s feelings that his own injury. “I can swim back and-“

“Just let me help, yeah? You’ve already done so much for me. It’s literally the least I could do,” Dan said and grabbed what he needed. “I’m just going to have on hand on your shoulder alright?”

Phil nodded in agreement and Dan put his hand on Phil’s shoulder. Phil’s skin was pleasantly cold. It was a little below normal human temperature if Dan would have to guess but it contrasted nicely with Dan who always ran too hot. Phil’s skin was smooth and it felt so human where Dan touched, just skin, no scales.

Phil’s entire back was mostly skin with the exception of the area down his spine while were covered in dark blue small scales. They seemed quite tough because the claw gashes had passed through them, only knocking out a couple of scales here and there instead of tearing right through them.

Turned out that Phil was as big a whimp about the disinfectant and Dan couldn’t wipe the smile off his face. Dan patted Phil try with the towel afterwards.

“That’s the worst of it,” he promised. “Do you want me to do the ointment too? It might be a little hard for you to reach.”

“Yes, please,” Phil said and he was so pliant under Dan’s hand. Dan had seen how Phil’s shoulder muscles could move him through the water and he could feel the strong muscle under his hand now but Phil was completely relaxed under his touch.

Dan applied the ointment carefully and he zoned out a little as he did the task, going back over with the applicator to smooth it out more times that was needed. He also reached out to correct some of the scales after getting Phil’s permission.

“There,” Dan finally said, even after he could technically have been done several minutes before. It had been a little indulgence. He told himself that he was only doing it because it was a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Phil turned around and folded his legs up under him. “Your turn,” he said to Dan reaching for the ointment but pausing until he got a nod and confirmation from Dan. He applied it to the new scrapes and then looked at Dan’s thigh.

They had changed the bandage every other day and it had looked mostly healed last time but now it was soaking wet and clinging to his skin.

“Can you help me with it?” Dan asked, trailing his hand along the ruined bandage. He was perfectly capable of removing it himself and they both probably knew that but Phil still just smiled.

He reached for the end of the bandage like he had done the other times, only to pause.

“I want to show you something cool but I’ll need you to trust me,” Phil said and peered up into Dan’s eyes.

Dan hadn’t noticed how close they had drifted. Phil was sitting cross-legged in front of him, Dan had his hurt leg folded out reaching past Phil while he was sitting on top of the other. Their faces were only a hand’s breath away and Dan’s eyes fell on Phil’s lips. It wasn’t the first time but it was the first time that he was doing it so obviously with Phil so close to him.

“Yeah, I trust you,” Dan said carefully but he meant every word. Phil had given him reason upon reason for Dan to trust him. He was just nervous. He was not really nervous about extending his trust but rather he was nervous about what it meant that he felt comfortable doing so to Phil, a siren that he’d only known for a week, who had tried to drown and eat him when they initially met.

Phil beamed, like a child having been told that someone wanted to watch their performance. “Watch,” he said and held up his pointer finger.

Dan watched as Phil’s claw on just that one finger elongated to twice the length. It could so easily slice through Dan’s skin, cutting through a vital artery and kill him. Still, he wasn’t really that scared when Phil moved his hand to the bandage on Dan’s thigh and started to slice through the bandage.

The wet fabric proved no resistance and it fell apart under Phil’s claw. Dan wasn’t even worried that Phil would nick the skin underneath. Seconds later, the bandage was in two pieces, flopping open on either side of Dan’s leg.

“Convenient,” Dan said, and he sounded a little choked up.

“Right?” Phil asked, enthusiastically. “I wanted to offer to do it before but you know… I doubted you would allow me to have my claws near your leg when I was the one who gave you the wound in the first place.”

Phil’s voice dipped a little towards the end and he looked at the scar. It had closed up nicely and Dan doubted that he needed to put on another bandage. He would have a small pink line down his thigh forever but it was a small price to pay. He wasn’t even sure he would consider it a price as much as a souvenir to remember Phil.

When the ship had started sinking, he’d just wanted to escape and never think about sirens or the ocean ever again. But this past week had done some things to change that. He knew he could never just put all of this behind him and pretend that it didn’t exist.

Too much had happened and Dan knew that Phil had made an impression on him that would last at least a lifetime.

“I forgave you for that already,” Dan said, looking down at his leg. His voice was a little too heavy with emotion so he tried to lighten the mood. “Besides, scars are cool, right?”

“They are,” Phil agreed, small smile tugging on his lips.

Dan wasn’t sure how long they sat and just smiled at each other but the air felt heavy between them.

“Knowing Peej’s schedule he could be due anywhere from now until tomorrow, so there was something I wanted to offer you before you have to leave,” Phil said, tone serious and a little nervous.

Dan adjusted his position slightly, shifting slightly closer to Phil without realising. Dan’s mind was already coming up with scenarios but one shone the brightest out of the ones Dan thought up. Did Phil want to offer him to stay?

“What is it, Phil?” Dan asked and Phil smiled a little at how Dan said his name. It was natural now, to pepper it into conversation and Phil almost always smiled when Dan did so.

“I want to give you one of my scales,” Phil said, twisting his hands in his lap. “I know it may sound a little weird but having it on you will let other sirens know that you are a friend of our kind. It will protect you from them.”

Dan frowned, suddenly a little worried. “Phil are you sure you should be telling me this? What if I run over and tell some of those merfolk hunters and they start skinning you guys after they… if they try…”

Dan couldn’t even get the words out because it kept producing images of Phil dead at the hands of a hunter.

But Phil chuckled a little and smile at Dan. “I trust you not to do that but even if you did, it wouldn’t work. Our scales have to be given. If they are taken, it won’t work. The skin where it is attached will be different if it’s ripped away. So, it only works if it’s a gift,” Phil said.

“Won’t it hurt?” Dan asked, looking over the neat blue greenish scales on Phil’s chest. All of his scales were blue in hue but depending on where they were located on his body, they had twinges of other colours in them as well. They were beautiful, just like the man they adorned.

“No,” Phil said with a lopsided grin. “Will you accept it?”

“Of course, I will,” Dan said sincerely. “Not only because it’s a gift and it would be rude to refuse or because it would be rather nice to be protected.”

“Then why?” Phil asked and he looked a little breathless.

“Because it’s from you. Something to remember you by,” Dan said.

He hadn’t expected that his words would paint visible heartbreak on the siren’s face and it cut into Dan’s heart uncomfortably. He thought that Phil would be glad that Dan wanted to remember him but he had a feeling that he had messed up based on that expression.

However, Phil quickly put a smile on his face, even if it didn’t really reach his eyes. He looked down at his chest and dug one of his claws under one of the biggest scales at the centre of his chest, just a little over his left. Dan wondered if that was also where sirens’ hearts resided and decided not to think about it too much.

Phil pulled the scale off easily and extended it to Dan with a flat palm.

It caught the light and practically glittered. Dan plucked it from Phil’s palm carefully but he reconsidered halfway through and purposely brushed his fingers over Phil’s palm in the pretend of clumsiness.

“It’s beautiful, Phil,” Dan said and looked from the scale and up to Phil’s eyes.

A sudden clicking sound came from the mouth of the cave and it was a familiar call by now. Tony swam towards them, head just above the surface as he emitted clicks in a language only Phil could understand.

“Ah, yes. Thank you,” he said. “Peej’s ship is already out on the horizon. He’s early.”

Dan felt about as enthusiastic about it as Phil sounded. He didn’t want to leave but he knew that he had to. He couldn’t continue to live in this cave, have Phil bring him food and water forever. It wasn’t sustainable. Dan needed to go home, even though he felt a little bit like he had found a potential new home in Phil.

It was too early to tell and this whole thing was probably a pipe dream. A fantasy that Dan could not entertain or it would ruin him. Dan looked over at Phil and his eyes trailed down to the bare spot on his chest, left by the removed scale that now rested comfortably in his palm.

It was slightly red and a single drop of blood trailed down from where the scale had been attached. It looked almost like a runaway tear and it seemed oddly appropriate for the mood in the cave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Reblog on tumblr](https://secretlywritingstories.tumblr.com/post/186936472317/siren-call-phan-siren-au) (thank you if you do)
> 
> And so we are ready to embark on the final chapter next week! Ahh! What did you think of Tony (I had to incorporate real life Phil's little pet in this - it was just to precious not to)? And Martyn almost made a huge mistake there, but it was good that Phil came along to stop him. Did I manage to frustrate any of you with the two of them speaking in a language Dan couldn't understand? Still, in their English dialogue there are hints about what's going on as well. 
> 
> I would love to hear if any of you have any theories about what's going on. All will be revealed in the next chapter but I want to see if anyone will be able to guess based on these first three chapters. I'm not going to confirm anything obviously but I'd love to just scream with you in the comments ([or my ask inbox on tumblr](https://natigail.tumblr.com/ask)). 
> 
> Next and final update will go up on Sunday the 25th of August at 8 PM CEST.


	4. The Siren's Call

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dan knew he had to leave the siren's cave and Phil. He couldn't stay here but part of him kept feeling like he was making the biggest mistake of his life by leaving. If only he could understand, if only he could _remember_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Heartbreak, near death experience, injuries and mild blood. (Still, it is a happy ending, promise!)

Phil insisted that Dan take the little watertight bag and the items inside it. It was food and more stuff to clean his wound, as well as a few clothes. Dan tried to argue against it but Phil just smiled at him and shook his head gentle.

There was something fragile about Phil’s expression that Dan couldn’t argue against. He hobbled over to the edge, dragging his leg a little more than necessary.

A stupid part of him wanted to act like he hadn’t recovered enough to leave. Phil said that Peej’s ship came by once a month. Maybe he could…

No. He shook his head. He could not stay here, even if he was intrigued by and curious about the siren. He was too caught up in his thoughts to notice that his own sad and strained smile perfectly matched Phil’s. The siren was just bobbing along in the water now, glancing out at the mouth of the cave.

Dan had to leave. He knew it and with an air of finality, he closed up the bag he’d been gifted tightly, after carefully having placed Phil’s scale inside. He didn’t want to risk losing it by holding it in his hand. It was probably all he would have to remember the siren by.

“So, how do we do this?” Dan asked, feeling properly awkward around Phil for the first time in days.

“I’ll swims us out,” Phil said, so easily and flashed a smile that showed up his sharp teeth.

Dan was about to willingly get back into the water with a siren and he wasn’t even one bit scared. How had so much managed to change in just the span of a week? But some burning feeling under his skin assured him that he was safe around Phil and he trusted it implicitly by now.

“Okay,” Dan said hesitantly, and he scooted down before sliding into the water. It was cold and a shiver raked through his body as he clumsily threated water next to Phil who looked like he was just effortlessly floating.

“Can you wrap your arms around my shoulders?” Phil asked, turning his back to Dan in an open invitation.

Dan’s heart started to race a little at how trustingly Phil turned his back to him and he realised he’d been staring when Phil looked over his shoulder with a confused expression in his eyes. Feeling a little flustered and caught out, Dan overcompensated and quickly launched himself around Phil, wrapping his arms more around his throat than his shoulders as he plastered himself to the siren’s back. At least he tried to avoid brushing against the new gash on his lower back.

The smaller scales that ran down Phil’s spine felt oddly familiar to Dan as he pressed close and his body flushed again, growing hotter once more.

It took a moment for Dan to notice that Phil had gone eerily still.

“Phil?” Dan asked, trying to peek around at Phil’s face as he let go of his hold on Phil a little.

Dan felt Phil swallow where Dan’s arm had been pressed against Phil’s throat and he had not realised how much pressure he had applied. He quickly let go entirely, and he swam around to look at Phil’s face.

“Sorry,” Phil muttered, as he raised his hand to gently rub at his throat. “I didn’t expect you to… latch on with so much pressure. My airways are a little sensitive.”

“Did I hurt you?” Dan asked, worry flooding his entire body as he swam a little closer, trying to look at Phil’s throat.

He hadn’t realised how close he had gotten until he glanced up and nearly knocked his nose into Phil’s. Still, Dan couldn’t make himself push away, even in his surprise. His legs kept kicking out under him, threading water and Dan tried to figure out why he felt an almost primal need to close the distance between his and Phil’s mouths.

A siren’s kiss meant drowning.

Dan had been taught that since he was just a young boy. But so many of the stories had been wrong about sirens. They had called them bloodthirsty and aggressive when in reality, it sounded like the sirens only defended their fellow sea creatures and their territory. If humans had just let them be, then they wouldn’t have to wreck so many ships or claims so many lives.

Phil had told him that the sirens might eat human flesh of their drowned victims but that was only not to let objectively good food go to waste. It was a little morbid but it was entirely pragmatic. Most of the time sirens survived off fish that they caught.

“Dan…” Phil whispered, and he blinked slowly, a few drops of water clinging to his eyelashes and Dan felt entirely spellbound. He felt warm all over, mostly at the centre of his chest and he couldn’t shave of the feeling of how right it felt to hear Phil say his name in that tone.

“Yeah?”

Dan could feel the tension in the air, he could tell that Phil wanted to tell him something. The moment was poised for it. Dan was just waiting for it to snap but then Phil closed his beautiful eyes and let out the most heart-breaking and nearly inaudible sigh that Dan had ever heard. 

“We have to hurry. Peej might not stick around too long if I don’t show soon. The other sirens still make him a little anxious. Can you try to hold on again? Maybe loop one hand over my shoulder and the other under my opposite arm?”

Dan nodded, his mouth feeling dry as he slowly moved around and this time attached himself carefully to Phil’s back. He made his movements slow, and he wasn’t sure if he was doing it to savour the moment for himself or if he wanted to prevent startling Phil again and nearly choking him.

It was a miracle that Phil hadn’t snapped at him after Dan had clamped down on his sensitive throat. If all the myths about sirens had been right, then Phil would have ripped off Dan’s head for that. But they were so wrong because Phil was the least aggressive and the most kind-hearted person Dan had ever met.

“Ready?” Phil asked softly. “I won’t go at full speed but it’ll still be quite fast.”

“Okay,” Dan said.

“Hang on tight, erastís,” Phil said, words lingering in the air and resonating inside of Dan’s skull as Phil began to swim and pick up speed. Phil said the words so easily, like he had said them to Dan a million times before. Dan wanted to question the foreign word that seemed so familiar but he got too distracted as they moved through the water.

Dan had always been terrified of the ocean and by an extension he had detested swimming. But swimming with Phil was something different. It felt easy, how the two of them glided through the water. He felt warm all over and the water brought a pleasant cool to his heated skin and Phil’s strong and sleek back felt comforting against Dan’s chest.

They made it out through the mouth of the cave and Dan looked up at the bright sky. Dan couldn’t spot the siren’s passage anywhere and instead Phil just navigated the two of them past similar caves to the one where Dan had spent the most enlightening week of his life.

Phil swam in silence and Dan wanted to say something but he didn’t know how. So, he kept his mouth shut and just watched as their surrounds shifted around them.

All too soon, a small ship came into view with a handful of men standing on the deck, looking out. As soon as they spotted Dan and Phil, someone started waving frantically with a handheld telescope in his hand. The waving hands suddenly dropped as Phil swam nearer and the patrons aboard the ship could see that Phil was not alone.

Phil came to a halt a good fifty meters away from the ship as he watched as one guy, presumably the captain, was lowered into a lifeboat.

“You’re nervous,” Phil said to Dan, startling him so much that he almost let go of Phil. He could probably let go of him and tread water himself instead of clinging onto Phil like dead weight but he wasn’t ready to let go just yet and Phil didn’t seem to have any trouble keeping them both afloat.

“What?” Dan snapped, more out of surprise than anything else.

“I can feel your heart hammering against my back,” Phil said, voice careful and a little hesitant. “And your body feels warmer. That usually means that you are about to… well, nerves?”

Dan felt like he was missing something again but he was too focus trying to calm his racing heart right now.

“You think I’ll be safe with these people?” Dan asked, carefully as he watched the man in the lifeboat start to row towards them.

Dan both heard and felt Phil’s amused snort. “They’re human. Surely, you’re safer with them than a siren.”

Phil said it such a matter of fact. Like he didn’t blame that Dan probably still was terrified by the predators of the sea, despite having been told that Dan wasn’t afraid of _Phil_specifically. Frankly, Dan wasn’t sure if humans or sirens would be the better choice right now. Only a week ago, he’d been tied to the railing, ready to be sacrificed as live bait by _humans_. Phil and his kind had defended their home and their friends and Phil had not only spared Dan’s life, but he had also kept him alive.

But Dan couldn’t even start to put that into words. It was too much of a mess in his head to begin with and he kept having the nagging feeling in the back of his head that something wasn’t right. He was missing some part of the puzzle and he had a feeling it would continue to annoy him until he found that missing jigsaw piece.

“Phil!” a cheery voice called out as the lifeboat came near them.

Phil swam forward, his movements so slow now that Dan hardly felt like they moved but they reached the edge of the lifeboat and Phil pulled one hand up to rest against the side of it. If he wanted to, he could tip this boat over with ease with his siren strength but instead he just smiled at the human inside it.

“Hi Peej,” Phil said warmly. “It’s good to see you.”

“And you, Phil,” Peej replied. “Though I feel you are being terribly rude as to not to introduce me to your new friend.”

Phil’s chest heaved, just for a moment, and Dan wondered why it felt like he was holding in a sob. Carefully, Phil’s free hand came up to rest on top of Dan’s interlocked ones and he gently pried them apart. Dan let him, as Dan tried to figure out why he was turning his palms towards Phil’s on instinct almost as if he expected Phil to intertwine their hands.

“Let go?” Phil asked, spoken in a whisper and Dan felt the lump in his throat and the words that he knew he couldn’t say.

_I don’t want to._

Phil kept his hands locked around Dan’s wrist and guided him to take hold on the side of the lifeboat. Peej was watching their exchange with interest.

“This is Dan,” Phil said finally, after what felt like a lifetime. “He needs a lift back to the mainland.”

“Okay?” Peej said, looking extremely confused. “Obviously, I’m happy to help but can you at least give me a little more than that?”

“Yes…” Phil said hesitantly. “Just get him up into the boat, yeah? He’s got a wound on his leg.”

“Sure,” Peej said without any hesitation and he reached a hand out for Dan to grab. “You should probably give him a push up though.”

Phil looked at Dan and caught his eyes, silently asking permission to put his hands on him. As if Dan hadn’t just spent the last ten minutes plastered against Phil’s back. He nodded back to Phil in confirmation but he still wasn’t ready when Phil’s hands carefully but firmly wrapped around his hips and lifted him onto the lifeboat with ease.

“Dan, was it?” Peej asked and smile brightly at his new passenger.

Dan just nodded.

“Phil, did you eat his tongue or something?” Peej asked, which caused both Dan and Phil to sputter with shock before either of them picked up on Peej’s teasing tone. Dan had opened his mouth to defend Phil and Phil had just let out embarrassed wails.

“Dan was an innocent like you,” Phil finally said, sinking down further into the water, so only really his head was visible. “He got mixed up with merfolk hunters.”

Peej looked over at Dan, clearly trying to evaluate him. Dan suddenly felt like he was being scrutinised and it made his skin crawl a little.

“He’s telling the truth, Peej,” Phil said, seemingly able to read where Peej’s mind had went only based on his expression. Dan wished that he could do that with Phil. He had a feeling they could establish the same type of easy communication, if only they had been granted more time.

“How do you know? You’re too trusting of everyone, Phil. He could be playing you.”

The frown that settled on Phil’s face was almost deadly. “I know he’s a good guy, Peej. Trust me. I _know_him.”

Dan wanted to argue that Phil really couldn’t know him, not after only a week, but the conviction with which he stated the words almost made _Dan _believe them. He didn’t have one bit of insecurity in them and they rang out as entirely sincere.

Peej looked baffled but he didn’t press the issue further. He turned to Dan with a friendly smile.

“Of course, I will be happy to take you back to the mainland. It’ll only be a couple of days before we dock at a harbour and as long as you stay away from the cells and the prisoner then we’ll be all good.”

“Thank you,” Dan said, shivering slightly, even if he still felt like he was burning.

Peej noticed and reached for something under his seat and dug out a blanket that he draped around Dan’s shoulders.

“How long has he been stuck at sea?” Peej asked Phil, probably deeming Dan a little too shaken to carry a proper conversation. It was not an unfair evaluation. Right now, Dan could hardly force a word out. He felt so unsettled that it was making him nauseous and he didn’t know what to do about it.

“A week,” Phil said and looked at Dan with worry. “I tried to look after him as best I could but… it’s complicated and I couldn’t exactly take him back to the family. They wouldn’t understand.”

“Phil, I’m not sure I understand either,” Peej said, looking over at Dan for a quick moment.

“Just…” Phil said and he was now grabbing onto the side of the lifeboat so tightly that the wood was creaking and bending out of shape under his hands, just ever so slightly. “I need you to get him home safe.”

Home.

Dan looked at Phil and he couldn’t sort out all the roaring thoughts in his head. They were messy and overlapping and he couldn’t make sense of them at all. But that one word resonated within him and he found himself wondering if he wasn’t meant to find home in someone’s eyes instead of his hometown.

“Phil, are you okay?” Dan said, as he leaned forward and put his hands on top of Phil’s before he could think twice about it.

Phil glanced up and held Dan’s eyes. His hands felt cold and hard under Dan’s and he wanted nothing more than for Phil to flip over his hands, so Dan could take his palms in his and somehow try to reassure him. He wasn’t very good with grounding people with physical touch but Phil clearly was and Dan reasoned that he probably liked it in return.

Dan saw tears form on Phil’s waterline, golden and warm as they fell down his cheeks until they tipped into the water below him.

“I’m okay, Dan,” Phil said, even if his tone was telling Dan the complete opposite. “I’m just happy that you are okay. I want you to live a happy life, you hear me? The happiest life you can. _Please_.”

Dan blinked, overwhelmed as he tried to process the information with his messy mind still not allowing him clarity. Phil sounded like he was broken but still, it was clear how deeply he felt for Dan’s potential for happiness. No one had ever told Dan that they just wanted him to have a happy life. Everyone else just had expectations, of what he should do for work, of what kind of people he should be attracted to, of how he should behave in public.

Phil just wanted him to be happy. Desperately so by the sound of it.

Dan didn’t understand the depth of the emotion, but he thought that many sirens were different emotionally and maybe they got attached so much quicker. Dan felt something burning in his chest, aching to call out to Phil to reply to his plea. Dan had little choice but to obey it.

He gently pried Phil’s hands from the side of the boat and took them in his, carefully, so that Phil could pull back at any moment but he didn’t. He just looked at Dan, golden tear residue clinging to his lashes as his lower lip wobbled.

“You have to be happy too, you hear? I want you to be happy, Phil. I don’t… I don’t know entirely what’s going on but I do know that you changed my life. Thank you for saving me, Phil.”

Phil sniffled at this, giving Dan’s hands one firm squeeze before letting go. Dan wanted to hold on, to not let Phil slip out of his hands because something in the pit of his stomach told him that this was wrong but he had little choice.

Phil ducked under water for a beat and he took Dan’s heart with him. It only started beating again when Phil resurfaced a moment later, gold now cleared from his eyes.

“Happy, Dan. Promise me?”

“I promise,” Dan said, his voice coming out surprisingly strained.

At his words, Phil cracked a smile. A warm and inviting one that managed to dispel the utter sadness that had been on his face ever since they had been told that Peej had arrived. Phil’s lips were moving, mouthing something, but Dan couldn’t make out what three words Phil was saying before he ducked under and he didn’t resurface this time.

The water was clear and undisturbed unlike Dan’s heart, which was hammering so fast that it felt like it was about to jump out of his chest.

Dan was numb as he was rowed back to Peej’s ship, hoisted up onto the deck and introduced to the crew. He was told names but they didn’t stick to any of the new faces in front of him. He did notice that most people were looking at him a little funnily, like they couldn’t quite gauge what to make of him. Dan didn’t blame them. He didn’t know what to make of himself either.

He had grown up terrified of sirens and right now he felt like he was making the biggest mistake of his life leaving one’s side.

“Here,” Peej said to Dan, walking up with a wet cloth. “You look like you’re burning up. You might have a fever.”

Dan accepted the cloth, icy cold to the touch and he could swear that he almost heard a slight sizzle when he pressed it to his forehead. He had not realised he was running that hot but he had been a little distracted with how he felt like he wanted to claw his skin off and jump into the water to go back to Phil.

They had only sailed for about an hour but Dan had just been stood at the railing the whole time, eyes looking to where the siren caves had disappeared in the distance. His heart was beating steadily in his chest but it was going too fast and he knew something was wrong. He wasn’t sure he could just blame a fever.

“Dan, maybe you should lie down in my cabin or something. You don’t look good.”

He felt like shit, so it was only appropriate that he looked like it too. Dan still didn’t look at Peej as the captain spoke to him. He kept his eyes fixed at the horizon while his hand was tightly wrapped around a scale from the siren. The scale felt cool and calming in his palm. He had taken it out immediately as they had sailed off and the cool scale felt almost heated through after having been in the warmth of Dan’s palm for so long. There was something so achingly familiar about the weight of it in his hand, the texture and the touch but Dan knew he’d never touch a siren’s scale before he met Phil.

“I think I should have stayed,” Dan whispered.

Maybe to himself, maybe to the wind in the hopes that they could somehow carry the words to Phil or maybe to the worried captain beside him.

“It’s not that safe for humans to stay in siren nests, Dan. Phil says that it happens from time to time but they try to avoid it since most sirens don’t like humans near their homes for obvious reasons.”

“Good. Humans can be vile,” Dan said, words chipped and cold.

“What I’m saying is that you didn’t really have a choice but to leave,” Peej continued. “Still, I must admit it’s weird seeing Phil act like that. I never thought I’d see him act like that again frankly.”

Peej’s words made Dan frown. “Again? What do you mean?”

“Oh, well… a year or so into my visits, I asked Phil if he had a partner, you know? I have never seen him look so longing as when he explained that he was waiting for his mate to come back to him. I never pressed the issue because he sounded so melancholic, desperate and in love and it was very clear that it was an open wound. Actually, I’ve never seen him express that level of emotions about anything other than when we left just now. I almost thought you might be his mate for a second there.”

Phil’s mate.

The words rung inside of Dan’s head and it was like he was picking through a tree’s bark, little by little pulling a fragment away to see the smooth wooden surface beneath. Something so achingly familiar. His chest felt like it was on fire.

Another part of Dan felt heartbroken because of course someone as fantastic as Phil had someone that he would look at lovingly. It would have been impossible for such a wonderful creature not to be taken. Up until right now, Dan hadn’t even been able to tell that his attraction was more than platonic to the siren. Fuck, it felt like it was even more than romantic.

Dan didn’t believe in soulmates because no one had ever been able to prove them but at the same time, he kept seeing Phil’s teary-eyed goodbye in his mind and he felt the pain, bright and hot in his chest.

Soulmates might be bullshit but compatibility wasn’t and Dan felt deep down that him and Phil were compatible on a level he couldn’t quite explain with words. They hadn’t been made for each other. That seemed too far-fetched but their paths had crossed and they had both known that they should never let go.

They _had_never let go…

Suddenly, Dan fell to his knees, clutching onto his temples as warm pulses went through his body. He wanted to scream at the pain but either his screams were trapped in his throat or he was so stumped by everything suddenly flashing across his mind.

_A teenage-looking version of Phil getting caught in a fishing net and a teenage version of Dan sneaking in late at night to free him._

_A young version of Phil and Dan running around on the beach, laughing without a care in the world._

_A very old version of Dan looking up at a still young-looking Phil looking like they had lived a long life together._

_A teenage Dan arriving at the siren’s passage in his little rowboat and almost getting eaten by sirens until Phil rushed out to kiss him._

_A middle-aged Dan caught in a cage about to be killed after ensuring Phil escaped a poacher’s hands._

_A teenage Dan arriving in a familiar looking cave and breaking into the brightest smile when he saw Phil swim towards him._

_Phil swimming strongly in the water while Dan flew above him, red wings stretched out strong and proud, as they raced for fun._

_Dan injured in an attack by merfolk hunters, feeling the life drain out of him as Phil tried to stop the bleeding._

Now Dan screamed. Because he remembered, he finally remembered. He should have remembered when he had gone into puberty, like the other times but something must have gone wrong because he hadn’t remembered. He hadn’t remembered Phil and he hadn’t remembered the lives that they had always lived together.

Dan hadn’t remembered how he had promised a crying Phil, who was trying to force the spilled blood back into Dan’s body, that he would come back as soon as possible. He hadn’t remembered the bruising kiss and how intensely Phil had looked in his eyes and made him promise. Phil had always been scared, even after the first time that Dan had come back, whether he would be able to do it next time.

Dan hadn’t remembered.

Until now.

Once he came more to his senses, he stopped screaming bloody murder and a quietness fell over the whole ship. Peej and the rest of the crew were staring at him like they were witnessing something both horrifying and incredible.

“Dan?” Peej called softly, stepping closer. “You… you have wings?”

Dan shook his head a little and looked down at his arms where feathers had sprouted from the skin of his arms, breaking through his shirt. Long, sharp red feathers adorned Dan’s arms from his wrists all the way up to his shoulders. It was a half shift that Dan had always preferred over turning completely into a bird.

“That’s because I’m a phoenix,” Dan said with a calmness in his voice that surprised himself.

Peej blinked at him in awe and Dan saw a couple of the crew members taking steps back in worry.

Dan didn’t blame them. Phoenix were quite a rare breed and most people believed that if they had ever been real, then they were probably extinct by now. The joke was on them because phoenix died naturally about once every eighty years or so but they were reborn immediately in a new location, usually far away in the shape of a seemingly human new-born. Most of the time if you killed a phoenix, you would only trigger its rebirth. There was only one true way to kill one and none of the poachers and hunters knew about that one.

A broken heart was the only thing that would ensure that a phoenix could not come back to life.

“Did you say a phoenix? As in a bird that gets reborn?” Peej asked, eventually when he found his voice.

“Yes,” Dan said and he shifted his wings back and forth. He peeled off his torn shirt. He hadn’t realised how much he’d missed them until he felt them again. He’d felt odd and misplaced for so long and now he finally knew why.

“Oh… wait! Oh my, you’re him then. Phil’s mate! The one he was waiting for,” Peej summarised.

Dan smiled a little, always so thrilled whenever others recognised his claim on Phil. He loved that siren with his whole heart. He’d fallen in love with him in his first life, before he’d even know he was a phoenix and he was just a kid that wanted to make sure the siren wouldn’t be killed.

They had been stuck together ever since. When Dan died, Phil would have to go through about fifteen or sixteen excruciating years where Dan grew up before he came to find him. But Dan had always promised to come back and he had.

Even when he hadn’t remembered this time around, it seemed like fate had somehow pushed him into Phil’s path once again. Maybe the notion of soulmates didn’t seem so ridiculous to his ears right now.

“That’s me,” Dan said proudly. “I couldn’t remember as fast as the other times. I’m guessing I might have been injured as a child. I didn’t have my memories.”

“You have memories of your past lives?” Peej asked.

Dan nodded. “All of them. So, I wonder if I can convince you to turn around and sail back to the siren’s passage?”

“Of course, I will get right on it,” Peej said and walked off to turn the rudder back around. “But then you have to tell me about what you remember and about phoenixes. I never thought I’d get meet one.”

Dan stayed by the railing, looking determined and he whispered to the wind again. The sea breeze rushed through his feathers and cool down his heated chest.

“I’m coming for you, erastís. I’m sorry but please wait for me.”

Dan looked across the deck until he spotted the scale he had dropped when he’d been overwhelmed by the onslaught of memories. He smiled at it. It wasn’t the first one Phil had given Dan, not by a long shot, but it was a pretty as any of the others. Dan knew Phil kept the collection back in their shared home, just waiting for Dan to come back and claim ownership of them again. Most of them had a been put on a string, so he could always have one around his neck, close to his heart. Phil had also given him a couple of the smaller scales that had been fashioned into rings.

Dan smoothed his thumb over the smooth scale and the familiarity made so much sense now. He pocketed it and turned around to see Peej approach.

Dan had expected the captain to be looking excited and brimming with the new reveal of Dan’s mythical side but instead Peej was frowning concerned at the paper in his hands.

Dan felt dread run down his spine. “What?”

Peej reached up and scratched the back of his head. “I have the radio scanner running, constantly to pick up messages from nearby ships. Just in case someone needs help but we intercepted a message and it’s… it is basically someone arguing over the prices of captured mermaids.”

“Mermaids that they have already captured?” Dan asked and he started to ruffle out his feathers.

“It didn’t sound like that. More like they are about to attack and trying to figure out how many they should try to get but I’m worried because you and I both know where the nearest merfolk cove is located.”

“Siren’s passage,” Dan said and he suddenly felt so heavy and like someone had punched him in the gut.

Hunters would have to come through siren’s passage to get to the merfolk and while the sirens most certainly had proved themselves more than capable of keeping humans at bay, it still didn’t mean that someone wouldn’t be killed in the defence of their home. It had happened before that mermaids and mermen got taken and sirens had been killed trying to protect them. Even with a sea serpent helping them, no one knew what would happen.

And Phil just thought that he had lost the love of his life and that Dan might never come back to him, in this life or in any future life.

Dan knew Phil, he _remembered_him now, and it was a recipe for disaster for Phil to go into battle when he was emotionally unstable. Usually, Dan would be there when the sirens warded off hunters and poachers, providing the pod with air coverage. If Dan shifted fully then his talons could be quite deadly too.

“Do you know how far they were?”

“They didn’t leave coordinates in the message but for us to be able to pick them up, they would have to be somewhat close.”

“They could already be near the siren’s passage?” Dan asked and his hand is gripping around the railing, already starting to hoist himself up. He’ll be rusty as hell, with his wings out for the first time in this life, but he had little choice but hope that they would carry him. At least he had his age on his side. It would have been impossible to fly for an extended period of time if he was still a teenager.

“Yes, possible. Dan what are you doing? Are you going to jump off? Get down!”

“I’m flying there.”

“I don’t know much about phoenixes but that seems like a very bull-headed idea anyway,” Peej said and tried to pull Dan down, to very little avail.

“We can’t sail there fast enough and I’m fast, if I can get my wings to cooperate,” Dan said and shook them out behind him, almost clipping Peej in the face.

“As far as I know, the sirens are more than capable to handle poachers,” Peej said, trying to change his negotiation tactic.

It didn’t matter because Dan had already decided what he was going to do and no one except Phil himself would ever have been able to talk him out of doing anything, no matter how stupid.

“You never know,” Dan said, thinking back to all the attacks he had helped during the years. He knew how many lives had been lost through his various existences. “I have to be there.”

And with those famous words, Dan let himself fall forward. Peej’s ship was relatively small, which meant that the distance between railing and the water’s surface wasn’t as great as Dan could have wished for.

The water seemed to come towards him with alarming speed and for a moment he worried that he wouldn’t be able to get wind under his wings but he felt at the last second. His feet managed to just smack against the water as he started to rear up, up into the sky with rapid movement of his wings.

It was an exhilarating feeling, a familiar arche already spreading through his muscles, but none of that mattered because Dan had somewhere to be and he would cross oceans to find Phil. He would do anything to come back to him, like he promised every time he was forced to say goodbye to him.

“Be careful!” Peej called out from the deck that seemed far away. Dan smiled at the words but he couldn’t turn around to acknowledge them when he had to focus very much to stay in the air.

Usually, he started to remember that he was a phoenix when he was about twelve or thirteen years old and with practice, he would be able to bring some of the feathers through his arms. Little by little, he’d be able to have all of his arms covered and within a few of years he would be able to do a full shift and then set out to find Phil. Sometimes, he stayed in touch with his adopted family, the people that had raised him and he usually loved them, but they were never quite his home. Not in the way that Phil was home.

The way he had been home for Dan for several lives.

His internal compass guided him towards the siren’s passage and he flew as fast as he dared. Part of himself wanted to push forward harder to get there as soon as possible but he knew that it would only mean that he’d wear himself out completely and potentially collapse into the sea.

Now that he was aware of his phoenix genes and he could recall his previous lives, he was no longer scared to be faced off with predators of the sea. He knew how to handle them very well if the need arose and he knew Phil’s scale in his pocket would make them hesitate upon spotting him.

Dan felt a huge bang of relief in his chest when he spotted the narrow passage but the relief was short lived and it quickly morphed into something much worse. Dan saw the ship, much bigger than the one Dan had been on a week ago as a deck hand.

And he could hear the cries of battle even before he could properly see the thrashing in the water and his heart leapt into his throat. He couldn’t see Phil but he knew he would be somewhere in the heart of the battle, fighting to protect his people and his home, even if he was not mentally stable. Everything was calling out for him to look for Phil, to make sure that he was okay but Dan knew he had to focus on the ship first.

Dan’s wings were aching and his lungs were burning and he more crashed than landed onto the deck of the ship. He could feel it almost wobble already, presumably the work of the adult sea serpent that Phil had mentioned but it didn’t seem like the ship was sinking just yet. Dan had noticed the odd gleam on the hull of the ship as he’d gotten close and he dreaded if the crew had somehow managed to make it harder to break through.

A couple of sailors stopped in their tracks as Dan crashed on the deck and he struggled to his feet. He knew he was quite the image with his red and orange feathers adorning his arms. He glared angrily at all of them. How dare they come here to take innocent lives to imprison them as show animals and slaves? How dare they attack and kill sirens who were just defending their home and then turn around and call sirens the monsters?

One of the men closest to Dan made the first move, running towards him with something that looked like a broadsword. Despite the fatigue, Dan easily managed to dodge and twisted around enough to grab the back of the man’s shirt and hurl him over the side of the ship. He screamed as he went down and Dan hoped the sirens would make quick work of him.

He had other plans.

He headed into the hull of the ships, down to where the canons and the gun powder was stored. He met no one in his way, all of them up on deck, shooting harpoons into the water to kill the sirens.

He gathered a couple of handfuls of gun powder and laid it out in a long line, leading back to the main supply. Since canons were very ineffective to hit something actually _in_the water, it was a mystery why they even had so much on board but Dan recognised that this ship probably had been designed for battle and not merfolk hunting.

Stepping out of his shoes, he took a breath and forced his feet to change. It was painful, stuck in this type of half-change that Dan had never been the best at mastering. For some reason, the wings had always been so easy to call forth but everything else was a little trickier. Still, he managed and he dragged his craws, deadly sharp against each other until sparks ignited and Dan saw them spring into the neatly laid out gun powder.

Running on bird feet were far from pleasant but Dan sprinted out as best he could. He just managed to make it onto the deck when he heard the first explosion. The force of it knocked him down and he landed awkwardly on his left wing. He tried to shake it out, even as the pain burned but when he tried to, it barely moved properly.

Another explosion shook the ship, the crew were too busy screaming and shouting to properly pay attention to the half bird and half man on their deck. Dan stumbled over to the railing, and against his better judgement he flipped out over it and hoped that the distance would be enough to get some air under his wings and make flight easier.

It had been wishful thinking with his injured wing and Dan fell face first into the cold water.

He could hear sirens about him, he could hear their song properly now, closer to them when it was not muffled by the wind whipping around him or shouting sailors. He felt drowsy as usual when met by the sirens’ voices and he blinked trying to keep himself aware. The water felt uncomfortable against his feathers and his feathered elbow ached where he’d fallen on it. He wanted to change back to his pure human shape because he could feel how he was dipping under the water every other second and he was not immune to drowning. He could not die without making sure Phil would be okay.

A siren came near him, one with red curly hair that he recognised easily. She was singing, a little uncertain and she looked at him sceptically.

“Hey Cornelia,” Dan choked out. “It’s good to see you again.”

Cornelia shut her mouth and started at him in wonder.

He knew he didn’t look the same as he did in his last life. He’d always been born male and usually somewhat tall and lanky but he never looked the same. It was probably why Phil hadn’t recognised him when he’d first fallen into the water. However, Dan was sure that Phil had figured out that he was not only a phoenix, but _his_phoenix. It only made it even more heart-breaking that Phil had bid him farewell after making him promise to have a happy life.

As if he could have a happy life if he wasn’t by Phil’s side.

Cornelia ducked under the water without any other word but Dan didn’t blame her. They were fighting for their lives here in the chaos. An extended row of explosions sounded on the ship and Dan was a little too close when one side of the hull was blown out entirely. It was broken and she was going down now.

Dan tried to swim away but swimming with bird feet and heavy feathers on his arms was not an elegant or effective thing. He squealed a little when he felt something smooth by his talons, only just stopping himself from reaching out and attacking. It might be another siren, one Dan didn’t know, but he wouldn’t hurt them, even if they were misplaced trying to hurt him.

He didn’t expect to see the flat head and intelligent eyes of the baby sea serpent that he’d gotten to know this past week. Tony swam close to Dan, keeping him stabilised under one of his arms and afloat. Thankful, Dan let him take some of the weight and started shift back.

It burned in the worst way possible and he was sure he’d get a rash after retracting his feathers as they were soaked in seawater but it didn’t matter. He got them in and his human feet back and swimming became a little easier, even with his bruised elbow.

“Thanks, Tony,” Dan said and reached over to pet the sea serpent on the head. “Do you know where Phil is?”

Now that the ship was going down his next priority was getting to Phil. He had known that it wouldn’t do any good to look after him until now. His first mission had been to bring down that damned ship and then change back. With all of that out of the way, he very much wanted to wrap the arms around his companion through life.

The fear was heavy in his chest too, now not pushed aside for adrenalin as much. He hadn’t seen Phil or heard him since he had arrived. If Phil had seen him fly in then Dan knew he would have had the siren by his side the moment he hit the water.

Tony swam out from under Dan’s arm and started swimming. Dan followed as best he could. He could see sirens looking his way but he didn’t know if it was because he wasn’t lulled to immobility by their song, if it was because he followed after the small sea serpent or if they could sense the gifted scale on his person, but they left him alone.

“Dan!” Martyn called out, swimming towards him at a speed that only a siren could. His clawed hands wrapped around Dan’s arm and started to pull him along faster than he could swim himself.

Dan liked Martyn. Phil’s brother was a nice and he didn’t hold it against him that he’d tried to drown and eat Dan just earlier today. Still, he would normally have snapped at being manhandled but here was something about Martyn’s urgency that made Dan’s worst fears spring to the forefront of his mind.

“Is it Phil?” Dan choked out, terrified.

Please do not let it be true, he pleaded to anyone who might be listening.

“Yes,” Martyn said and swam even faster and it felt like he was ripping the socket out of his shoulder at this rate but the pain was dull compared to the devastation ache Dan could feel in his chest.

Phil was hurt. Phil was hurt and Dan should have hurried to him faster. Dan should never have left. He should have trusted his instincts when Phil was pushing him up on Peej’s lifeboat. If he hadn’t left then he would have been here to protect Phil. He should have…

Dan’s thoughts came to a terrifying halt when he saw Phil sprawled out across a rock, head in his mother’s lap. Kath snapped up her eyes and looked at Dan with so much hostility that he felt like he might catch on fire.

Then in a flicker, her entire expression changed and she looked like she was about to cry.

“You came back,” she said. “You found him.”

Dan wasn’t sure how she was able to tell that it was him now that he looked human again but Phil’s mother had always been something special. Phil liked to say that she was psychic but Dan didn’t believe in that. 

“Phil…” Dan breathed out, falling almost over him. He felt like the wind got knocked out of him when he saw how Kath was holding cloth over a huge wound in Phil’s left side.

Dan’s heart scattered so much that he worried that he might die on the spot but then he saw the weak but so important rise and fall of Phil’s chest.

Tears were coming to his eyes but he didn’t let them fall. Not yet. He couldn’t let them fall; they were too valuable. Dan placed his hand on top of Kath’s and pulled it back. His hands were shaking, even more so when he saw how the blood seeped out of the wound and he leaned in and the first tear fell.

Dan cried quite often when he was a child in this life, mostly because the other kids kept bullying him and he never really fitted in anywhere. But by the time he reached his teenage years, he had shut down that vulnerable part of himself and he almost never cried. The few times he did after reaching puberty, he had noticed sometimes how he would be dark around his eyes and he had always figured he had just not realised that he had been dirty around the eyes or in his face.

He hadn’t known that his body had been crying phoenix tears then, despite young Dan not remembering his past lives or having started to practice bringing his wings forward bit by bit. His phoenix side had still started to develop again.

There was a reason that phoenixes tried to avoid revealing their nature to anyone. For a long time, people would kidnap them and hold them hostage, harvesting their tears for their own use. Eventually, the captured phoenix would die and be reborn outside of their clutches but they could have been held hostages for decades.

Phoenix tears had healing properties like none other.

In Dan’s past lives, Phil would always carefully collect the tears whenever Dan cried and the sirens used them to brew healing ointments. The same healing ointment that had been used on Dan when he had injured his leg.

But nothing was as potent as the real thing, fresh from the source and Dan was openly weeping for Phil now. He sobbed and prayed that this would be enough as his hand rested against Phil’s throat, feeling for his weak pulse.

“I’m so sorry,” he cried and sniffled. “I should have realised. I should have been able to tell.” He hiccupped. “Even I couldn’t remember, I should have known. You must have known. I know you.”

“He did,” Martyn said, from where he waited in the water. Dan took that as a good sign. The fight must have been won if Martyn dared to linger here. He wouldn’t do that if he knew he could do nothing here but help save people elsewhere.

But the fight and the poachers didn’t matter one bit right now because Phil was lying under Dan and he was dying and Dan didn’t know if he could heal him fast enough.

“You’re so stupid,” Dan said, and hulked again and again. “I love you so much and you… you let me walk away!” His voice grew louder now, angry and desperate in the grief. “You let me walk away, you beautiful selfish bastard. We don’t know if I would have remembered next time. I might not if I hadn’t known you in this life. You’re such an idiot. Come back to me.”

Dan leaned in to rest his forehead against Phil’s for just a minute. One hand was still on his throat, careful not to dig into the sensitive skin and his other was holding Phil’s hand so hard that he was undoubtedly bruising it. Gentle and brutal all in one.

He looked back at the wound, how he’d managed to drench it in black dusty tears. Dan leaned forward to caress Phil’s nose with his own.

“I’d kiss you right now but I want you to k-kiss me b-back,” Dan said, his voice cracking. “You always tell me that I have to come back to you because you’ll live thousands of years. You always tell me that you’re not going anywhere. Don’t you dare break that promise, Phil.” Dan’s tears were still flowing and he had never felt this heartbroken or lost. “You know I’ll die without you. We have so many lives left. Come back for me. Come back for us. _Please_.”

Dan closed his eyes and his whole body was shaking, with anger, with grief, with exhaustion, he didn’t know. He just knew that he was falling apart and the love of his life was dying in front of his eyes. He had never envied that Phil had to watch Dan die but he had tried to take comfort in the notion that Phil knew Dan would come back.

Phoenixes came back but sirens didn’t.

“_Please_,” he whispered again and he sobbed.

“Happy.”

Dan snapped his head up, seeing Phil’s half opened eye lids and the small smile tugging on his lips.

“You promised me… you’d be happy,” Phil said hoarse and Dan cried harder, now flinging himself forward to wrap his arms around Phil. “Don’t cry.”

“I hate you,” Dan said through his sobs.

“I know,” Phil said, voice weak and soft as he moved his hands to hug Dan back from where he had plastered himself against the siren. He was replying to the words Dan had only said implicitly.

“I came back,” Dan said. “I came back for you, even after you sent me away like an idiot.”

“I always just want you to be happy,” Phil said, voice raspy. “Even if it isn’t with me.”

Dan laughed, a bit hysterically but he was just so happy because Phil was breathing, he was smiling and he was talking.

“I’d never be happy without you.”

“Sap,” Phil said and Dan could hear the smile on his lips as he said it, even if he still couldn’t see it because he’s buried his face in Phil’s neck.

Dan pulled back reluctantly to look at the siren underneath him. Phil looked pale and physically weak but his inner strength shone as brightly as ever. Dan looked down at the wound, smeared in black but it looked like it had mostly closed up.

Both Dan and Phil looked around for the first time since Phil had woken up. Kath, Cornelia and Martyn were closest to them but all the other sirens were gathered around. Dan looked around to see a lot of familiar faces but also a few of new ones that must have been born or joined in the eighteen years that he’d been gone.

“Eh, hi everyone. I’m Phil’s mate,” Dan said, voice secure and strong.

“Damn right you are,” Phil said, reaching one of his hands out for Dan. Dan fell back into his space easily.

“Phil, darling, shouldn’t you-“ Kath tried to say, undoubtedly to warn him from not causing strain to his still healing wound, but Phil wasn’t listening.

He was only paying attention to Dan. Dan could see the fear and the agony that lingered and he recalled their parting scene at the lifeboat with his new perspective. Phil had been devastated. In fact, Dan had never seen him so hurt and sad.

“I’m going to kiss you now,” Phil said, smile on his lips as he guided Dan back to hover over his lips.

Dan cracked a smile, black tears still smeared around the corners of his eyes. “And I’m going to kiss you right back.”

Their lips met and it was truly like coming home. None of Dan’s homes through his lives would ever compare to how he felt when he was with Phil. The kiss was chaste but Dan felt the burning longing and he felt hot in the middle of his chest, like he knew he did when his phoenix side flared up. Dan deepened the kiss just a little, feeling Phil’s sharp teeth under his lips. Anyone without years and years of practice would probably have hurt themselves but Dan knew how to navigate Phil almost better than he could figure himself out.

Some myths said that phoenixes only fell in love once.

Dan didn’t believe in myths either but he couldn’t imagine being with anyone other than his siren. He had chosen Phil a long time ago and he had actively chosen him over and over again. When Dan was dying the first time, Phil had told him that he didn’t need to come looking for him if he wanted to live a different life, as long as he was happy. Dan had laughed and called Phil dumb because he didn’t care about all the other lives that he had the potential of having when he knew where he could find his home, his happiness and his true companion.

Dan pulled back a little, even as Phil tried to ache upwards to follow his lips. Dan didn’t go far though, he let his lips hover over Phil’s so that he could feel their breath mingling. One naturally cold and the other naturally hot. It created the perfect mixture and Dan hadn’t known how much he needed the reassurance that he always found in Phil’s lips, in his touch, in his words, in his presence.

“If I have to keep coming back to you, then you have to promise to stay alive for me,” Dan said, seriously and he didn’t realise that he was still crying until he saw a black tear land on Phil’s pale cheek. He reached up to smear it across Phil’s cheek and he saw how colour rushed back to the siren’s skin, healing and giving him strength.

“I will do my best,” Phil said with a fond chuckle and he looked around. Dan followed his eyes and he saw that they had been left alone by the whole siren pod. They had probably retreated when they had started to kiss. They were naturally very respectful creatures and Phil’s family must have known he would be safer in Dan’s hands than anywhere else.

“I can’t believe I didn’t remember you,” Dan said. “I’m so sorry.”

“You have nothing to apologise for,” Phil said and reached up to trace Dan’s cheek with his thumb, only pausing to poke Dan’s dimple. It was the one thing that had remained through all his lives. Dan always had the one prominent dimple and Phil had always adored it.

“Phil,” Dan said, simply because he could and there were few things that gave him greater joy than saying Phil’s name. “I love you.”

“And I love you. You know I never wanted to turn you away, right?” Phil said, serious with a frown on his beautiful face.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Dan asked, his voice small as he snuggled closer, laying plastered into Phil’s uninjured side with ease.

“Would you have believed me?” Phil countered with a chuckle.

Stubborn, cynical and sceptic by nature, Dan without his memories would probably have called Phil crazy if he had just come out and told him that they were lovers in a previous life and Dan used to come back to him every time he was reborn. Phil knew him well.

“You could have made me believe you,” Dan said, despite all of that.

“I never want to make you do anything,” Phil said, softly and reached up to play with Dan’s hair.

Dan knew the reason Phil said it so adamantly. As a siren with the ability to seduce and lure, Phil had never wanted to use his ability on innocents. When they first met, he’d been so worried that he had accidentally attracted Dan and Dan didn’t really love him. Oh, how had he been unfounded in those fears.

Dan loved him deeply, across lifetimes too, entirely by his own volition.

Phil’s touch was featherlight in Dan’s hair and it was almost like he was trying to reassure himself that Dan was really here. Dan could relate. He had a palm sprawled out across Phil’s chest to feel the easy rise and fall that reminded him that Phil was alive.

They were both alive and they had found each other again. Dan had made a promise to himself a long time ago that he was never letting go of Phil and he would do anything to come back to him whenever his time ran out and he would have to be reborn.

He hadn’t known that he could forget his memories and it was terrifying to know that could happen but at the same time, he had still been led back into Phil’s path, with only a few years delay.

“Phil?” Dan asked softly.

“Hmm?”

“How do you think I ended here in these waters with you?” Dan asked.

“You already know what I think,” Phil said with a smile.

“You see divine intervention in any and all coincidences,” Dan scoffed, incredibly fond.

“Dan, you came here on accident and I was the siren closest to you as the ship went down. I nearly drowned you because you felt so human at first. By all accounts, you should have died at my hands there.”

“But you didn’t kill me,” Dan whispered and he felt how Phil’s heart started racing under his palm.

“I couldn’t drown you,” Phil said and Dan was thrown right back into the cave a week ago when he’d said the same thing.

“Why?”

Phil hummed, clearly thinking over how to say what he wanted to express.

“Because a tiny bit of me wondered if you might be _you_. I had never tried to sing like that to you before but there was just something about you. I felt something. A sixth sense if you will. I couldn’t let myself believe it at first but then with every passing word, I became more and more convinced. And it broke my damn heart because I knew I could never tell you. Not if you didn’t recognise me.”

Dan wanted to argue and tell Phil that he should have tried but he couldn’t because this was one of the reasons that Dan had fallen so deeply in love with Phil and he continued to be head over heels for him over a hundred years later. He was so kind and compassionate and he would never force anyone to do anything.

Phil had faith that everything would turn out alright. Dan knew him well enough to know that the siren would have prayed to any and all deities that Dan would remember him when he became a teenager in his next life, like the other times. He would put his faith into the universe. Dan would never have done that but he still couldn’t help but feel very endeared.

“Can you sing me a song?” Dan asked softly and closed his eyes as he leaned against Phil’s chest.

“I almost died,” Phil said, mock offended that Dan was making demands of him.

“And I cried my eyes out,” Dan countered.

Phil snorted and a silence settled over them for a moment before it was broken by the softest melodic lullaby.

Most people thought that sirens could only sing their alluring and deadly song that would make anyone that heard it comply with their every whim. It was true that it was the most common type of song that a siren would sing. They wielded that song like a weapon to protect their follow creatures and their homes.

But there was another song that sirens only sung to their mates. It was a love declaration and the listener would be able to feel how enamoured the siren was with them. This song was not about a siren taking control but rather about relinquishing it. They metaphorically placed their heart into the palms of their beloved.

Dan had heard Phil sing like that for him many times and he knew even more awaited in the future. The siren’s call made Dan feel warm and relaxed and he sighed as he sunk more into the strong arms of the man he loved. He had found his home again.

_Beware of the siren’s call, they tell you._

_Listening to it will leave you enthralled._

_For if you hear the alluring song…_

_Your heart will fall in love with an irresistible siren._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Reblog on tumblr](https://secretlywritingstories.tumblr.com/post/187099645396/siren-call-phan-siren-au) (thank you to anyone who does!)
> 
> And so we come to an end. I've had so much fun with this story and I want to thank everyone who left comments on the chapters and kept me motivated and excited about this story. Your words mean more than you know. That being said, what did you think of this conclusion? I saw some quite good theories in the comments last chapter and a lot of you were close with the whole they've known each other before, maybe soulmates and Dan probably not being entirely human. Of course, I had to make our notonfire boy a bird associated with fire, you know? It's also a nice contrast to Phil being a creature from the sea. 
> 
> I made myself cry while writing Dan finding injured Phil. Did I get you too? But they are finally reunited and they will have so many more lives together after this one. They are okay. My boys are finally back together and nothing hurts anymore! If you have any questions about the world or the lore, feel free to ask them in the comments. I might write a little bit of bonus stuff about their previous and/or future lives together, just glimpses probably, if that has any interest? It wouldn't be up for a while but do let me know?
> 
> I'm talking too much but let me just say thank you one final time to anyone who read this, left kudos or posted a comment. Thank you for engaging with my works and I hope I'll see you again in the future.


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